A Sensor-Based mHealth Platform for Remote Monitoring and Intervention of Frailty Patients at Home

Abstract

Frailty syndrome is an independent risk factor for serious health episodes, disability, hospitalization, falls, loss of mobility, and cardiovascular disease. Its high reversibility demands personalized interventions among which exercise programs are highly efficient to contribute to its delay. Information technology-based solutions to support frailty have been recently approached, but most of them are focused on assessment and not on intervention. This paper describes a sensor-based mHealth platform integrated in a service-based architecture inside the FRAIL project towards the remote monitoring and intervention of pre-frail and frail patients at home. The aim of this platform is constituting an efficient and scalable system for reducing both the impact of aging and the advance of frailty syndrome. Among the results of this work are: (1) the development of elderly-focused sensors and platform; (2) a technical validation process of the sensor devices and the mHealth platform with young adults; and (3) an assessment of usability and acceptability of the devices with a set of pre-frail and frail patients. After the promising results obtained, future steps of this work involve performing a clinical validation in order to quantify the impact of the platform on health outcomes of frail patients.

Telemedicine and Digital Medicine in the Clinical Management of Hypertension and Hypertension-Related Cardiovascular Diseases: A Position Paper of the Italian Society of Arterial Hypertension (SIIA)

“…Telemonitoring also has considerable utility in the home management of frail patients with multiple chronic diseases [59,60]. In this setting, the concomitant presence of cognitive or visual impairment might complicate the use of digital tools.…”

Use of the k-nearest neighbour and its analysis for fall detection on Systems on a Chip for multiple datasets

“…[8] talks about a smart vest that can monitor respiratory and physical activities. The M-health platform [9] described as part of the "Frail" project has a smart vest, fall sensors, and a SmartWatch.…”

Predictive validity of the Short Functional Geriatric Evaluation for mortality, hospitalization and institutionalization in older adults: A retrospective cohort survey

“…Besides, the progression from non-frailty to frailty is associated with an increase in healthcare costs [ 22 ] that can be reduced by timely intervention led by the assessment of frailty. Finally, frailty can often be reversible [ 23 ]. The assessment of frailty needs a valid and reliable questionnaire, capable of accurately predicting negative outcomes such as hospital admission and mortality and of identifying people showing first signs of pre-frailty.…”