An Innovative AAL System Based on IoT Technologies for Patients with Sarcopenia

Abstract

Sarcopenia is a highly prevalent, age-related muscle disorder associated with adverse outcomes. It is very important from a medical point of view to periodically monitor patients at risk of developing sarcopenia in order to early detect its onset or progression through objective and specific indicators. Today, the emerging Internet of Things (IoT)-enabling technologies allow us to create innovative, wearable, and non-invasive systems that can offer useful clinical support in this area. This work is focused on the use of combined hardware and software technologies, enabling the IoT, in order to monitor people suffering from sarcopenia by offering a high value-added service in the field of the Ambient Assisted Living (AAL). In addition to the description of the proposed system architecture, a validation of the entire system is also included, from both a performance and a functional point of view. Test beds have been carried out by using the independent replications method, and all measurements related to the identified sarcopenia parameters are characterized by a 95% confidence interval with a 5% maximum relative error. The implementation of these technologies as a supporting clinical tool used in a specific setting could significantly impact the life and independence of the sarcopenic frail elderly population.

Digital Therapeutics for Obesity and Eating-Related Problems

“…Advanced digital technologies have been leveraged to behavioral medicine, establishing “DTx.” DTx provides new opportunities to easily access effective interventions in daily lives. Recent studies showed that DTx can be applied to other endocrinological diseases such as diabetes, thyroid disease, and sarcopenia [ 34 , 35 ]. To develop efficient DTx for obesity and eating problems, it is required to monitor and manage both physical and mental health conditions.…”

Leveraging IoT-Aware Technologies and AI Techniques for Real-Time Critical Healthcare Applications

“…In this architecture, the wearable devices transmit data directly to a Cloud platform containing data processing, storage, and visualisation facilities that can be accessed by the patient or medical practitioners from anywhere. Further, falling under this group is the work by Addante et al [ 37 ] in which a system containing a forearm-worn wearable device that makes use of a combination of accelerometers and gyroscopes to monitor movement and EMG sensors to obtain muscle mass information for the diagnosis of Sarcopenia, an ageing-related muscular disorder, was defined. They also used BLE to transfer data between the measuring device and a mobile device hosting an application to interact with the measured data and function as a gateway to the Cloud database.…”

Portable Digital Monitoring System for Sarcopenia Screening and Diagnosis

“…Some technological systems to evaluate sarcopenia have been recently developed [ 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 ], but these are rarely available in the market and their validity has yet to be established. Although the presented system still uses manual anthropometric evaluations (i.e., body circumferences and skinfolds), which represents an important limitation amongst older adults because of their skin and fat tissue properties [ 46 ], anthropometric evaluations do have economic and time-consuming advantages compared with current lab methods (MRI, MRS, CT, and DXA).…”