IDuring the blissful summer that Hemesh Chadarabada spent with his grandmother in 2018, they watched endless movies and ate her grandmother's chicken biryani. Late one evening, while Chadaravada, then 12, was sitting alone in front of the television, Jayasree got up in her nightgown and went to her home in Guntur, southern India, to make her a cup of tea. Ta.
After returning to her bedroom, Chadarabada went into the kitchen and noticed that her grandmother, then 63, had left the gas on.
“She was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, and I was still in shock. What would have happened if I hadn't been there?” Chadaravada says.
Chadaravada knows that Jayasree is not only a loving grandmother but also a dynamic and successful woman with a high-profile career as a civil servant who interacted with Telangana's top politicians and policy makers. Ta.
But Alzheimer's disease changed her forever. “She would wake up at 3 or 4 in the morning and she would go outside thinking she was on the train,” he says.
During that happy summer, Chadarabada, a self-confessed geek from Hyderabad who loves robotics, decided he wanted to invent a device to help people like his grandmother.
Now 17 years old, Chadarabada is ready to start building a device to detect falls and wandering in Alzheimer's patients, something that is not possible with currently available devices.
Light and compact, Alpha Monitor can be worn as a badge or armband and sounds an alarm when the wearer begins to move, alerting caregivers if the patient falls or wanders.
Most similar devices work over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, so if a person moves outside of the frequency's restricted range, they lose connectivity and, with it, monitoring. However, Alpha Monitor Lolait uses.
Chadarabada taught himself by watching YouTube videos about robotics and electronics and developed 20 prototypes.
Understanding the needs of Alzheimer's disease (Alzheimer's disease in India) patients Estimated 8.8 million people), spent time at a day center run by the Alzheimer's Disease Related Disorders Association of India.
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