Philippa Mary Lewis, Mosman, Australia; Karen Maree Carey, Lower Templestowe, Australia; Alan Michael Cottenden, Bedfordshire, England; David Albert Barda, Rose Bay, Australia; Peter Curran, Oatley, Australia; and Don Black, Albert Park, Australia. Assigned to Fred Bergman Healthcare Pty. Ltd., North Sydney, Australia.

Filed: 11/5/10
Issued: 3/15/16

A system for monitoring incontinence in one or more subjects, the system comprising: a. a display means; b. input means operable by a user; c. one or more transmitters, each transmitter being associated with one or more subjects being monitored; the one or more transmitters being configured to transmit signals containing continence-related data for the one or more subjects, wherein the continence-related data has been obtained over time from a continence sensor associated with an absorbent article worn by each respective subject; and d. a receiver unit configured to receive signals from the one or more transmitters; e. processing means in communication with at least the receiver unit, the processing means including a display processor configured to process the received signals and communicate display information to the display means for display of a visual representation of continence-related information derived from continence sensors in the absorbent articles worn by the one or more subjects being monitored; wherein the processing means is configured to receive automatically, a sensor status indicator which distinguishes whether a sensor, or absorbent article associated with a sensor, is newly connected to the system or is instead re-connected to the system; wherein the sensor status is determined by reference to a characteristic of a sensor status circuit on the absorbent article, the characteristic being determined by reference to one or more elements incorporated into the sensor status circuit.

These elements selected from a group consisting of: capacitors, expirable components, contactless devices, read only memory devices and programmable memory devices; and wherein the sensor status circuit is configured to identify automatically a type of sensor with which it is associated, wherein a designated sensor type is associated with a designated capacitor value; or wherein the sensor status circuit includes a fuse and the sensor status is determined to be newly connected to the system when the fuse is initially closed.