1 Wearable Sensor Networks: An Elders Need Saikath Bhattacharya and S S Singh Abstract—The life expectancy of people is improving with better health care, medicines and rapid scientific develop- ment. According to the United Nations Population Division (UN 2011), India’s 60 and older population is expected around 323 million people, a number greater than the total U.S. population in 2012. An important challenge of providing health care to this large number of elders is of a great concern. Restructuring health care systems toward proactive managing of wellness rather than illness, and focusing on prevention and early detection of disease emerge as the answers to these problems. Wearable systems with context awareness for continuous health monitoring are a key technology in helping the transition to more proactive and affordable and scientific healthcare. In our paper we lay a basis understanding and approaches for implementing context awareness in a Body sensor network for proactive health management for elders. Index Terms—Wireless Networks, Wearable Sensors, Mobile Computing, Telemedication, Context Sensing. ✦ 1 I NTRODUCTION Wealth is the single most important determi- nant of the quality of life among elderly. The health status of the elderly is determined by a host of economic, social, psychological and physiological factors. With advancing age, ill- health becomes a major hindrance for the well- being of the elderly. Almost 60 per cent of the Indian elderly are heads of the households that they live in.Family has traditionally been the primary source of support for the elderly in India[1]. Also Nearly two-thirds of the el- derly report suffering from at least one chronic ailment with arthritis, hypertension, diabetes, asthma and heart disease as the most com- monly reported ailments. Women have higher prevalence rates of chronic conditions than men on average, and are much more likely to suffer from arthritis, hypertension and osteo- porosis specifically, while men are more likely to suffer from heart disease, and skin and renal • Saikath Bhattacharya and S S Singh is with the School of Electronics Engineering, KIIT University, Bhubaneswar, Orissa, 751024. • E-mail: see saikath.bhattacharya@gmail.com diseases[2]. This raises fundamental challenges to health care sector with the following ques- tions: 1) How to provide quality care to elderly people living in remote areas? 2) How to reduce the rate for hospital visits for with disabilities ? 3) How to care for an increasing number of elderly patients with complex medical conditions? Acute morbidity is defined as any elderly person reporting any event of sickness or ill health not more than 15 days.According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India has prepared the National Programme for Health Care for the Elderly (NPHCE)[1], [2], high blood pressure, heart disease hypertension, diabetes, malaria and arthritis are the most common diseases affect- ing the elders. Orthopaedic/musculoskeletal ailments involving arthritis, rheumatism and osteoarthritis. are the most common type of ailment reported by the elders.