IoT Applications in Elderly Care and Assisted Living

Abstract

The ageing global population has created urgent demand for affordable, scalable solutions to support independent living, continuous health monitoring, and timely clinical intervention for older adults. Internet of Things (IoT) technologies — including wearable sensors, ambient sensors, smart-home actuators, and cloud/edge analytics — enable real-time collection, transmission, and interpretation of physiological and behavioural data. This paper reviews core IoT application areas in elderly care (remote health monitoring, fall detection, medication adherence, cognitive support, and social connectedness), summarizes enabling architectures and algorithms, and discusses practical challenges in usability, interoperability, data security, ethics, and cost. Finally, the paper identifies research gaps and proposes directions to increase trust, accessibility, and clinical integration of IoT systems for assisted living.

KEYWORDS: IoT; elderly care; assisted living; fall detection; remote monitoring; wearable sensors; privacy; smart home.