2,511 research outputs found
Smart nanotextiles: materials and their application
Textiles are ubiquitous to us, enveloping our skin and
surroundings. Not only do they provide a protective
shield or act as a comforting cocoon but they also
serve esthetic appeal and cultural importance. Recent
technologies have allowed the traditional functionality
of textiles to be extended. Advances in materials
science have added intelligence to textiles and created
âsmartâ clothes.
Smart textiles can sense and react to environmental
conditions or stimuli, e.g., from mechanical, thermal,
chemical, electrical, or magnetic sources (Lam Po
Tang and Stylios 2006). Such textiles find uses in many
applications ranging from military and security to
personalized healthcare, hygiene, and entertainment.
Smart textiles may be termed ââpassiveââ or ââactive.ââ A
passive smart textile monitors the wearerâs physiology
or the environment, e.g., a shirt with in-built
thermistors to log body temperature over time. If
actuators are integrated, the textile becomes an active,
smart textile as it may respond to a particular stimulus,
e.g., the temperature-aware shirt may automatically
roll up the sleeves when body temperature rises.
The fundamental components in any smart textile
are sensors and actuators. Interconnections, power
supply, and a control unit are also needed to complete
the system. All these components must be integrated
into textiles while still retaining the usual
tactile, flexible, and comfortable properties that we
expect from a textile. Adding new functionalities to
textiles while still maintaining the look and feel of the
fabric is where nanotechnology has a huge impact on
the textile industry. This article describes current developments
in materials for smart nanotextiles and
some of the many applications where these innovative
textiles are of great benefit
Distance Aware Relaying Energy-efficient: DARE to Monitor Patients in Multi-hop Body Area Sensor Networks
In recent years, interests in the applications of Wireless Body Area Sensor
Network (WBASN) is noticeably developed. WBASN is playing a significant role to
get the real time and precise data with reduced level of energy consumption. It
comprises of tiny, lightweight and energy restricted sensors, placed in/on the
human body, to monitor any ambiguity in body organs and measure various
biomedical parameters. In this study, a protocol named Distance Aware Relaying
Energy-efficient (DARE) to monitor patients in multi-hop Body Area Sensor
Networks (BASNs) is proposed. The protocol operates by investigating the ward
of a hospital comprising of eight patients, under different topologies by
positioning the sink at different locations or making it static or mobile.
Seven sensors are attached to each patient, measuring different parameters of
Electrocardiogram (ECG), pulse rate, heart rate, temperature level, glucose
level, toxins level and motion. To reduce the energy consumption, these sensors
communicate with the sink via an on-body relay, affixed on the chest of each
patient. The body relay possesses higher energy resources as compared to the
body sensors as, they perform aggregation and relaying of data to the sink
node. A comparison is also conducted conducted with another protocol of BAN
named, Mobility-supporting Adaptive Threshold-based Thermal-aware
Energy-efficient Multi-hop ProTocol (M-ATTEMPT). The simulation results show
that, the proposed protocol achieves increased network lifetime and efficiently
reduces the energy consumption, in relative to M-ATTEMPT protocol.Comment: IEEE 8th International Conference on Broadband and Wireless
Computing, Communication and Applications (BWCCA'13), Compiegne, Franc
Continuous Monitoring of Vital Signs With Wearable Sensors During Daily Life Activities:Validation Study
BACKGROUND: Continuous telemonitoring of vital signs in a clinical or home setting may lead to improved knowledge of patientsâ baseline vital signs and earlier detection of patient deterioration, and it may also facilitate the migration of care toward home. Little is known about the performance of available wearable sensors, especially during daily life activities, although accurate technology is critical for clinical decision-making. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to assess the data availability, accuracy, and concurrent validity of vital sign data measured with wearable sensors in volunteers during various daily life activities in a simulated free-living environment. METHODS: Volunteers were equipped with 4 wearable sensors (Everion placed on the left and right arms, VitalPatch, and Fitbit Charge 3) and 2 reference devices (Oxycon Mobile and iButton) to obtain continuous measurements of heart rate (HR), respiratory rate (RR), oxygen saturation (SpO(2)), and temperature. Participants performed standardized activities, including resting, walking, metronome breathing, chores, stationary cycling, and recovery afterward. Data availability was measured as the percentage of missing data. Accuracy was evaluated by the median absolute percentage error (MAPE) and concurrent validity using the Bland-Altman plot with mean difference and 95% limits of agreement (LoA). RESULTS: A total of 20 volunteers (median age 64 years, range 20-74 years) were included. Data availability was high for all vital signs measured by VitalPatch and for HR and temperature measured by Everion. Data availability for HR was the lowest for Fitbit (4807/13,680, 35.14% missing data points). For SpO(2) measured by Everion, median percentages of missing data of up to 100% were noted. The overall accuracy of HR was high for all wearable sensors, except during walking. For RR, an overall MAPE of 8.6% was noted for VitalPatch and that of 18.9% for Everion, with a higher MAPE noted during physical activity (up to 27.1%) for both sensors. The accuracy of temperature was high for VitalPatch (MAPE up to 1.7%), and it decreased for Everion (MAPE from 6.3% to 9%). Bland-Altman analyses showed small mean differences of VitalPatch for HR (0.1 beats/min [bpm]), RR (â0.1 breaths/min), and temperature (0.5 °C). Everion and Fitbit underestimated HR up to 5.3 (LoA of â39.0 to 28.3) bpm and 11.4 (LoA of â53.8 to 30.9) bpm, respectively. Everion had a small mean difference with large LoA (â10.8 to 10.4 breaths/min) for RR, underestimated SpO(2) (>1%), and overestimated temperature up to 2.9 °C. CONCLUSIONS: Data availability, accuracy, and concurrent validity of the studied wearable sensors varied and differed according to activity. In this study, the accuracy of all sensors decreased with physical activity. Of the tested sensors, VitalPatch was found to be the most accurate and valid for vital signs monitoring
Wearable devices for remote vital signs monitoring in the outpatient setting: an overview of the field
Early detection of physiological deterioration has been shown to improve patient outcomes. Due to recent improvements in technology, comprehensive outpatient vital signs monitoring is now possible. This is the first review to collate information on all wearable devices on the market for outpatient physiological monitoring.
A scoping review was undertaken. The monitors reviewed were limited to those that can function in the outpatient setting with minimal restrictions on the patientâs normal lifestyle, while measuring any or all of the vital signs: heart rate, ECG, oxygen saturation, respiration rate, blood pressure and temperature.
A total of 270 papers were included in the review. Thirty wearable monitors were examined: 6 patches, 3 clothing-based monitors, 4 chest straps, 2 upper arm bands and 15 wristbands. The monitoring of vital signs in the outpatient setting is a developing field with differing levels of evidence for each monitor. The most common clinical application was heart rate monitoring. Blood pressure and oxygen saturation measurements were the least common applications. There is a need for clinical validation studies in the outpatient setting to prove the potential of many of the monitors identified.
Research in this area is in its infancy. Future research should look at aggregating the results of validity and reliability and patient outcome studies for each monitor and between different devices. This would provide a more holistic overview of the potential for the clinical use of each device
Wireless body sensor networks for health-monitoring applications
This is an author-created, un-copyedited version of an article accepted for publication in
Physiological Measurement. The publisher is
not responsible for any errors or omissions in this version of the manuscript or any version
derived from it. The Version of Record is available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/0967-3334/29/11/R01
Towards the internet of smart clothing: a review on IoT wearables and garments for creating intelligent connected e-textiles
[Abstract] Technology has become ubiquitous, it is all around us and is becoming part of us. Togetherwith the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm and enabling technologies (e.g., Augmented Reality (AR), Cyber-Physical Systems, Artificial Intelligence (AI), blockchain or edge computing), smart wearables and IoT-based garments can potentially have a lot of influence by harmonizing functionality and the delight created by fashion. Thus, smart clothes look for a balance among fashion, engineering, interaction, user experience, cybersecurity, design and science to reinvent technologies that can anticipate needs and desires. Nowadays, the rapid convergence of textile and electronics is enabling the seamless and massive integration of sensors into textiles and the development of conductive yarn. The potential of smart fabrics, which can communicate with smartphones to process biometric information such as heart rate, temperature, breathing, stress, movement, acceleration, or even hormone levels, promises a new era for retail. This article reviews the main requirements for developing smart IoT-enabled garments and shows smart clothing potential impact on business models in the medium-term. Specifically, a global IoT architecture is proposed, the main types and components of smart IoT wearables and garments are presented, their main requirements are analyzed and some of the most recent smart clothing applications are studied. In this way, this article reviews the past and present of smart garments in order to provide guidelines for the future developers of a network where garments will be connected like other IoT objects: the Internet of Smart Clothing.Xunta de Galicia; ED431C 2016-045Xunta de Galicia; ED341D R2016/012Xunta de Galicia; ED431G/01Agencia Estatal de Investigación de España; TEC2013-47141-C4-1-RAgencia Estatal de Investigación de España; TEC2016-75067-C4-1-RAgencia Estatal de Investigación de España; TEC2015-69648-RED
Validation of a Wearable System for Respiratory Rate Monitoring in Dogs
One of the most relevant physiological parameters in dogs is respiratory rate (RR). The aim of this paper is to present a novel wearable system that allows to accurately estimate RR in dogs, and to compare it to a gold standard in static conditions. Data from 12 dogs were acquired while the animals were anesthetized and attached to a vital signs monitor. The experimental setup consisted of three Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) applied on the dog, and a video camera filming the RR value shown on the monitor. The range of RR values analyzed in the study is 0 to 29 breaths per minute, read by the vital signs monitor. The mean RMSE for the data acquisitions is 1.68 breaths per minute. The values of the filtering parameters that allow to obtain the best performance depend on the specific acquisition. This result demonstrates that adaptive filtering is a viable method for the application. Future developments include tests on a larger dataset, and trials on dogs in unconstrained environments and during movement
Wearable and Implantable Wireless Sensor Network Solutions for Healthcare Monitoring
Wireless sensor network (WSN) technologies are considered one of the key research areas in computer science and the healthcare application industries for improving the quality of life. The purpose of this paper is to provide a snapshot of current developments and future direction of research on wearable and implantable body area network systems for continuous monitoring of patients. This paper explains the important role of body sensor networks in medicine to minimize the need for caregivers and help the chronically ill and elderly people live an independent life, besides providing people with quality care. The paper provides several examples of state of the art technology together with the design considerations like unobtrusiveness, scalability, energy efficiency, security and also provides a comprehensive analysis of the various benefits and drawbacks of these systems. Although offering significant benefits, the field of wearable and implantable body sensor networks still faces major challenges and open research problems which are investigated and covered, along with some proposed solutions, in this paper
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