Indian teen invents gadget that may transform dementia care

In the blissful summer that Hemesh Chadalavada spent with his grandmother in 2018, the pair watched endless movies and ate her chicken biryani. Late one evening, as Chadalavada, then 12, sat on his own in front of the television, Jayasree got up in her nightdress and went to make tea at her home in Guntur, southern India.

After she had returned to her bedroom, Chadalavada went into the kitchen to find that his grandmother, then 63, had left the gas on.

“She had recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s but I was still in shock. What would have happened if I hadn’t been there?” says Chadalavada.

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Now aged 17, Chadalavada is poised to start manufacturing a device that detects when people with Alzheimer’s fall or stray, which goes beyond the reach of the devices currently available.

The light and compact Alpha Monitor, which can be worn as a badge or an armband, sets off an alarm when the wearer starts to move and alerts a caregiver if the patient falls or wanders off.

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Alpha Monitor can detect a person more than a mile away in cities and three miles (5km) in the countryside thanks to the long-range technology, known as LoRa, it uses.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/jan/16/hemesh-chadalavada-indian-inventor-alpha-monitor-alzheimers-dementia-care