Fall Prediction and Prevention Systems: Recent Trends, Challenges, and Future Research Directions.

Fall prediction is a multifaceted problem that involves complex interactions between physiological, behavioral, and environmental factors. Existing fall detection and prediction systems mainly focus on physiological factors such as gait, vision, and cognition, and do not address the multifactorial nature of falls. In addition, these systems lack efficient user interfaces and feedback for preventing future falls. Recent advances in internet of things (IoT) and mobile technologies offer ample opportunities for integrating contextual information about patient behavior and environment along with physiological health data for predicting falls. This article reviews the state-of-the-art in fall detection and prediction systems. It also describes the challenges, limitations, and future directions in the design and implementation of effective fall prediction and prevention systems

Water, Sanitation, Hygiene, and Nutrition in Bangladesh: Can Building Toilets Affect Children's Growth?

This report provides a systematic review of the evidence to date, both published and grey literature, on the relationship between water and sanitation and nutrition. It also examines the potential impact of improved water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) on undernutrition. This is the first report that undertakes a thorough review and discussion of WASH and nutrition in Bangladesh

A Review of Wireless Body Area Networks for Medical Applications

Recent advances in Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) technology, integrated circuits, and wireless communication have allowed the realization of Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs). WBANs promise unobtrusive ambulatory health monitoring for a long period of time and provide real-time updates of the patient's status to the physician. They are widely used for ubiquitous healthcare, entertainment, and military applications. This paper reviews the key aspects of WBANs for numerous applications. We present a WBAN infrastructure that provides solutions to on-demand, emergency, and normal traffic. We further discuss in-body antenna design and low-power MAC protocol for WBAN. In addition, we briefly outline some of the WBAN applications with examples. Our discussion realizes a need for new power-efficient solutions towards in-body and on-body sensor networks.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures, and 3 tables. In V3, the manuscript is converted to LaTe

Utility of Fear Severity and Individual Resilience Scoring as a Surge Capacity, Triage Management Tool during Large-Scale, Bio-event Disasters

Threats of bioterrorism and emerging infectious disease pandemics may result in fear related consequences. Fear based signs and symptoms, if left undetected and untreated, may be extremely debilitating and lead to chronic problems with risk of permanent damage to the brain’s locus coeruleus stress response circuits. The triage management of susceptible, exposed, and infectious victims seeking care must be sensitive and specific enough to identify individuals with excessive levels of fear in order to address the nuances of fear-based symptoms at the initial point of contact. These acute conditions, which include hyper-vigilant fear, are best managed by timely and effective information, rapid evaluation, and possibly medication that uniquely addresses the locus-coeruleus driven noradrenalin overactivation. This article recommends that a fear and resilience (FR) checklist be included as an essential triage tool to identify those most at risk. This checklist has the utility of rapid usage and capacity to respond to limitations brought about by surge capacity requirements. Whereas the utility of such a checklist is evident, predictive validity studies will be required in the future. It is important to note that a unique feature of the FR Checklist is that in addition to identifying individuals who are emotionally, medically, and socially hypo-resilient, it simultaneously identifies individuals who are hyper-resilient who can be asked to volunteer and thus rapidly expand the surge capacity

How 5G wireless (and concomitant technologies) will revolutionize healthcare?

The need to have equitable access to quality healthcare is enshrined in the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which defines the developmental agenda of the UN for the next 15 years. In particular, the third SDG focuses on the need to “ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages”. In this paper, we build the case that 5G wireless technology, along with concomitant emerging technologies (such as IoT, big data, artificial intelligence and machine learning), will transform global healthcare systems in the near future. Our optimism around 5G-enabled healthcare stems from a confluence of significant technical pushes that are already at play: apart from the availability of high-throughput low-latency wireless connectivity, other significant factors include the democratization of computing through cloud computing; the democratization of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cognitive computing (e.g., IBM Watson); and the commoditization of data through crowdsourcing and digital exhaust. These technologies together can finally crack a dysfunctional healthcare system that has largely been impervious to technological innovations. We highlight the persistent deficiencies of the current healthcare system and then demonstrate how the 5G-enabled healthcare revolution can fix these deficiencies. We also highlight open technical research challenges, and potential pitfalls, that may hinder the development of such a 5G-enabled health revolution