Communications: electrical – Condition responsive indicating system – Specific condition
Reexamination Certificate
2001-11-06
2004-02-24
Lee, Benjamin C. (Department: 2632)
Communications: electrical
Condition responsive indicating system
Specific condition
C340S573400, C340S539180, C361S679090, C455S404100, C379S040000, C379S041000, C379S045000, C379S046000, C379S049000, C379S051000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06696956
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to an emergency dispatching system, and, more particularly, to a system which can reliably notify a monitoring person, such as a relative or a caretaker, of the occurrence of an unusual event when the unusual event has occurred on a person who lives alone, such as an elderly person, a sick person, a person who takes up a job, leaving a family behind, or a single woman.
BACKGROUND ART
Recently, elderly people who live alone are increasing due to the progress of the aging society and nuclear families, and relatives should regularly phone or visit them to check the safety of the elderly people. Even in case of living with elderly people, particularly, sick elderly people and demential elderly people, caretakers should normally attend them, and even when the caretakers go out for a short period of time, they should call outside to regularly check the safety.
With regard to persons who take up jobs, leaving their families behind or single persons, not as urgent as elderly people though, actually relatives would worry about their safety and regularly phone them or repeatedly visit them.
Dangers that may occur on those persons who live alone include an internal type (self-brought type) (hereinafter called “internal danger”), such as a spasm of sickness, heavy bone fracture caused by falling or falling down unconscious in addition to an external type (hereinafter called “external danger”), such as a gas leakage or fire in a house or break-in of a burglar.
There are various home security systems to protect persons who live alone against dangers. While the specific contents of those systems range widely, they are fundamentally designed to detect the occurrence of the dangers that face a monitored person by various sensors (burglar sensor, smoke sensor, temperature sensor, gas leak sensor, etc.) and notify a predetermined security company or the like.
The introduction of those security systems can certainly relieve relatives of some burden of regularly phone calls or visits.
However, the conventional security systems are designed in such a way that when various sensors detect the occurrence of an emergency, large-scale measures are taken, such as immediate activation of a sprinkler or dispatching of a person in charge from a security company, so that a relatively high contract fee should be paid.
Further, the sensors always face a possibility of malfunction, so that false reporting besides the activation of a sprinkler or dispatching of a person from a security company would make mental and economical burdens of a monitored person and relatives or the like unbearable.
Furthermore, although the conventional security systems are relatively good at detecting an external danger, they hardly cope with the detection of an internal danger but can merely recognize the depression of a report button by a monitored person himself at best. Therefore, there arise such a problem that even when a monitored person falls into a condition where it is difficult to even depress the report button, an effective aiding measure cannot be taken against it immediately.
The invention has been devised to overcome the problems of the conventional systems and aims at realizing an emergency dispatching system which is designed to be able to reduce the occurrence of false reports as much as possible and reliably send the first report to relatives or the like in an emergency, and to automatically detect even the occurrence of an internal danger.
DISCLOSURE OF INVENTION
To achieve the object, an emergency dispatching system according to the invention comprises a communication device on a monitored person side which is connectable to a communication line; at least one sensor for sensing a vital reaction of a monitored person or an external danger thereof; contact address storage means where at least one telephone number to contact in case of emergency is stored; message storage means where at least one message to be sent in case of emergency is stored; safety judging means for judging a safety of the monitored person based on an output of the sensor; dispatch notifying means for warning the monitored person of an emergency when it is assumed by the safety judging means that the emergency has occurred; automatic dialing means for generating a dialing signal corresponding to a telephone number of the contact address and outputting the dialing signal to the communication device on the monitored person side, thereby establishing a call to a communication device at the contact address, in case where a safety confirmation input is not detected within a certain time since warning made by the dispatch notifying means; and message dispatching means for sending an emergency message stored in the message storage means to the communication device at the contact address via the communication device on the monitored person side after establishment of a communication line between the communication device on the monitored person side and the communication device at the contact address. The “telephone number” includes the number of a pager.
The “vital reaction” means an event which indicates that a monitored person is living a normal life, and the present system indirectly recognize the safety of the monitored person by detecting whether or not there is the vital reaction of the monitored person, such as “washing a face”, “passing through a corridor”, “boiling water”, “using a toilet” or “taking a bath”.
Therefore, the internal danger of the monitored person can also be automatically detected.
When the monitored person himself or a caretaker performs an input operation for safety confirmation after warning made by the dispatch notifying means, emergency reporting to the communication device at the contact address will not be made naturally.
That is, the emergency dispatching system is designed in such a way that even when the safety judging means has assumed the occurrence of an emergency based on the outputs of individual sensors, emergency reporting is not made immediately to the contact address, but the monitored person is warned and emergency dispatching is done unless an input on safety confirmation by the monitored person is detected. It is therefore possible to prevent false reports.
After the safety judging means decides that “an emergency has occurred”, dialing is automatically made to a communication device registered as a contact address, so that a relative can reliably receive the first report once the number of the portable telephone or the like of the relative is registered as the contact address.
In other words, as long as a report is not made, the safety of the monitored person can be assumed, making it unnecessary to make regular telephone calls to check the safety, like the past.
As the first report on the occurrence of an emergency is reliably dispatched to a relative or the like, this creates a room for self-helping protection and helping activities provided mainly by the relative or the like, making it possible to minimize the use of an external institute that demands a relatively high cost.
As the communication device on the monitored person side, a radio telephone (a mobile communication terminal) such as a portable telephone, PHS, may be used. In this case, the contact address storage means, the message storage means, the safety judging means, the dispatch notifying means, the automatic dialing means and the message dispatching means have only to be retained in a charger of the radio telephone, and the sensor has only to be connected to the safety judging means by a cable or wirelessly.
It is desirable to have such a structure that charging state detecting means for detecting whether or not the radio telephone is set in the charger is provided, and the safety monitoring operation of the safety judging means starts at the same time the radio telephone is set in the charger, and the safety monitoring operation is temporarily canceled at the same time the radio telephone is detached from the charger.
As a result, a monitored person can use this emergency dispatching syste
Uchida Junji
Uchida Kyoko
Darby & Darby
Lee Benjamin C.
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