1,057 research outputs found

    M-health review: joining up healthcare in a wireless world

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    In recent years, there has been a huge increase in the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to deliver health and social care. This trend is bound to continue as providers (whether public or private) strive to deliver better care to more people under conditions of severe budgetary constraint

    Overcoming barriers and increasing independence: service robots for elderly and disabled people

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    This paper discusses the potential for service robots to overcome barriers and increase independence of elderly and disabled people. It includes a brief overview of the existing uses of service robots by disabled and elderly people and advances in technology which will make new uses possible and provides suggestions for some of these new applications. The paper also considers the design and other conditions to be met for user acceptance. It also discusses the complementarity of assistive service robots and personal assistance and considers the types of applications and users for which service robots are and are not suitable

    Device-Free Localization for Human Activity Monitoring

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    Over the past few decades, human activity monitoring has grabbed considerable research attentions due to greater demand for human-centric applications in healthcare and assisted living. For instance, human activity monitoring can be adopted in smart building system to improve the building management as well as the quality of life, especially for the elderly people who are facing health deterioration due to aging factor, without neglecting the important aspects such as safety and energy consumption. The existing human monitoring technology requires additional sensors, such as GPS, PIR sensors, video camera, etc., which incur cost and have several drawbacks. There exist various solutions of using other technologies for human activity monitoring in a smartly controlled environment, either device-assisted or device-free. A radio frequency (RF)-based device-free indoor localization, known as device-free localization (DFL), has attracted a lot of research effort in recent years due its simplicity, low cost, and compatibility with the existing hardware equipped with RF interface. This chapter introduces the potential of RF signals, commonly adopted for wireless communications, as sensing tools for DFL system in human activity monitoring. DFL is based on the concept of radio irregularity where human existence in wireless communication field may interfere and change the wireless characteristics

    The OCarePlatform : a context-aware system to support independent living

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    Background: Currently, healthcare services, such as institutional care facilities, are burdened with an increasing number of elderly people and individuals with chronic illnesses and a decreasing number of competent caregivers. Objectives: To relieve the burden on healthcare services, independent living at home could be facilitated, by offering individuals and their (in)formal caregivers support in their daily care and needs. With the rise of pervasive healthcare, new information technology solutions can assist elderly people ("residents") and their caregivers to allow residents to live independently for as long as possible. Methods: To this end, the OCarePlatform system was designed. This semantic, data-driven and cloud based back-end system facilitates independent living by offering information and knowledge-based services to the resident and his/her (in)formal caregivers. Data and context information are gathered to realize context-aware and personalized services and to support residents in meeting their daily needs. This body of data, originating from heterogeneous data and information sources, is sent to personalized services, where is fused, thus creating an overview of the resident's current situation. Results: The architecture of the OCarePlatform is proposed, which is based on a service-oriented approach, together with its different components and their interactions. The implementation details are presented, together with a running example. A scalability and performance study of the OCarePlatform was performed. The results indicate that the OCarePlatform is able to support a realistic working environment and respond to a trigger in less than 5 seconds. The system is highly dependent on the allocated memory. Conclusion: The data-driven character of the OCarePlatform facilitates easy plug-in of new functionality, enabling the design of personalized, context-aware services. The OCarePlatform leads to better support for elderly people and individuals with chronic illnesses, who live independently. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved

    RFID Localisation For Internet Of Things Smart Homes: A Survey

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    The Internet of Things (IoT) enables numerous business opportunities in fields as diverse as e-health, smart cities, smart homes, among many others. The IoT incorporates multiple long-range, short-range, and personal area wireless networks and technologies into the designs of IoT applications. Localisation in indoor positioning systems plays an important role in the IoT. Location Based IoT applications range from tracking objects and people in real-time, assets management, agriculture, assisted monitoring technologies for healthcare, and smart homes, to name a few. Radio Frequency based systems for indoor positioning such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a key enabler technology for the IoT due to its costeffective, high readability rates, automatic identification and, importantly, its energy efficiency characteristic. This paper reviews the state-of-the-art RFID technologies in IoT Smart Homes applications. It presents several comparable studies of RFID based projects in smart homes and discusses the applications, techniques, algorithms, and challenges of adopting RFID technologies in IoT smart home systems.Comment: 18 pages, 2 figures, 3 table

    Wireless innovation for smart independent living

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    Towards pervasive computing in health care – A literature review

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    <p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The evolving concepts of pervasive computing, ubiquitous computing and ambient intelligence are increasingly influencing health care and medicine. Summarizing published research, this literature review provides an overview of recent developments and implementations of pervasive computing systems in health care. It also highlights some of the experiences reported in deployment processes.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>There is no clear definition of pervasive computing in the current literature. Thus specific inclusion criteria for selecting articles about relevant systems were developed. Searches were conducted in four scientific databases alongside manual journal searches for the period of 2002 to 2006. Articles included present prototypes, case studies and pilot studies, clinical trials and systems that are already in routine use.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The searches identified 69 articles describing 67 different systems. In a quantitative analysis, these systems were categorized into project status, health care settings, user groups, improvement aims, and systems features (i.e., component types, data gathering, data transmission, systems functions). The focus is on the types of systems implemented, their frequency of occurrence and their characteristics. Qualitative analyses were performed of deployment issues, such as organizational and personnel issues, privacy and security issues, and financial issues. This paper provides a comprehensive access to the literature of the emerging field by addressing specific topics of application settings, systems features, and deployment experiences.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Both an overview and an analysis of the literature on a broad and heterogeneous range of systems are provided. Most systems are described in their prototype stages. Deployment issues, such as implications on organization or personnel, privacy concerns, or financial issues are mentioned rarely, though their solution is regarded as decisive in transferring promising systems to a stage of regular operation. There is a need for further research on the deployment of pervasive computing systems, including clinical studies, economic and social analyses, user studies, etc.</p

    Activity Inference for Ambient Intelligence Through Handling Artifacts in a Healthcare Environment

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    Human activity inference is not a simple process due to distinct ways of performing it. Our proposal presents the SCAN framework for activity inference. SCAN is divided into three modules: (1) artifact recognition, (2) activity inference, and (3) activity representation, integrating three important elements of Ambient Intelligence (AmI) (artifact-behavior modeling, event interpretation and context extraction). The framework extends the roaming beat (RB) concept by obtaining the representation using three kinds of technologies for activity inference. The RB is based on both analysis and recognition from artifact behavior for activity inference. A practical case is shown in a nursing home where a system affording 91.35% effectiveness was implemented in situ. Three examples are shown using RB representation for activity representation. Framework description, RB description and CALog system overcome distinct problems such as the feasibility to implement AmI systems, and to show the feasibility for accomplishing the challenges related to activity recognition based on artifact recognition. We discuss how the use of RBs might positively impact the problems faced by designers and developers for recovering information in an easier manner and thus they can develop tools focused on the user

    Impact of Wireless Communications Technologies on Elder People Healthcare: Smart Home in Australia

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    Over the last three decades, there has been a dramatic rise in ageing populations in most countries. Older people remain in nursing home care due to the fact that general services and medical support are provided. However, these environments often negatively affect the occupants due to high cost, limited staff, as well as the social impact they have. A way to overcome these challenges is to place the elderly instead in a Smart Home environment. In other words, by implementing such technology, older people are able to remain at home, instead of going to nursing homes and pay the extremely high fees. The aim of this study is to describe the impact of wireless communications technologies to replace nursing homes with smart homes. Using smart wireless sensors, wireless communication and ambient intelligence systems, it is possible to create systems capable of measuring the vital signs of patients at home. This is based on exchanging signals (information) between sensors and the data server from already deployed sensor equipment (infrared or camera) or wearable smart sensors, allowing older people to stay at home.Over the last three decades, there has been a dramatic rise in ageing populations in most countries. Older people are remaining in nursing home care due to the fact that general services and medical support are provided. However, these environments often negatively affect older people due to high cost, limited staff and the social impacts they have. A way to overcome these challenges is to place the elderly instead of the Nursing Homes in a Smart Home environment. In other words, by implementing such technology, older people are able to remain at home, instead of going to nursing homes and pay the extremely high cost.&nbsp;The aim of this study is to describe the impact of wireless communications technologies on both nursing home and smart home. Using smart wireless sensors, wireless communication and ambient intelligent systems, it is possible to create systems capable of measuring vital signs of the patient at home. This is based on exchanging signals (information) between the sensor and the data server from already deployed sensors (infrared or camera) or wearable smart sensors, allowing older people to stay at home
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