Development of a ubiquitous healthcare monitoring system combined with non-conscious and ambulatory physiological measurements and its application to medical care

Abstract

Abstract-The demand for ubiquitous healthcare monitoring has been increasingly raised for prevention of lifestyle-related diseases, acute life support or chronic therapies for inpatients and/or outpatients having chronic disorder and home medical care. From these view points, we developed a non-conscious healthcare monitoring system without any attachment of biological sensors and operations of devices, and an ambulatory postural changes and activities monitoring system. Furthermore in this study, in order to investigate those applicability to the ubiquitous healthcare monitoring, we have developed a new healthcare monitoring system combined with the non-conscious and the ambulatory measurements developed by us. In patients with chronic cardiovascular disease or stroke, the daily health conditions such as pulse, respiration, activities and so on, could be continuously measured in the hospital, the rehabilitation room and subject's own home, using the present system. The results demonstrated that the system appears useful for the ubiquitous healthcare monitoring not only at medical facility, but also during daily living at home.

In the spotlight: Bioinstrumentation

“…Nevertheless, directly relevant advances in physiological measurement techniques, with apparatus installed in household equipment, have been reported [14]- [20]. The development of these systems has arisen from the need for healthcare at home and is an independent approach to the smart home-based development.…”

“…This includes the cardiac pulse, respiration and snoring using a flat-type under-pillow sensor with vinyl tubes filled with silicone oil [17]- [20]. Also derived are a body surface contact-pressure distribution map together with body movements using a bed sheet-type pressure sensor with 2D-distributed multi-pressure elements [20]. For the care of the elderly there is a risk of drowning in the bathtub and a reliable alarm is needed.…”

“…This is able to measure body and excretion weight and urination rate together with the ballistocardiogram (a small body weight change produced by cardiac blood ejection; [14], [15], [21]). Also, a system built into the toilet seat allows the blood pressure to be measured [16], [17], [20]. Just recently, these authors have developed a network system that connects with each facility monitoring system using a Local Area Network (LAN).…”

“…Just recently, these authors have developed a network system that connects with each facility monitoring system using a Local Area Network (LAN). This network system is also supervised from another site (data server center) via a public Wide Area Network (WAN) with appropriate security, so as to consolidate individual healthcare information [20].…”

Development of a network system combined with ambulatory and non-conscious physiological measurements for supporting challenged kids -A new proposal of a gait monitoring system for use in rehabilitation

“…Also, we developed an ambulatory system measuring the detailed postural changes together with walking speed [11] and non-conscious measurement systems without the need either to attach any biological sensors to the subject's body and any troublesome operations of measurement devices during normal daily life [12]. These showed their high measurement precision by comparison with simultaneous recordings of conventional methods and their usefulness for the medical care and the rehabilitation field [13], [14].…”