5,811 research outputs found
BIOTEX-biosensing textiles for personalised healthcare management.
Textile-based sensors offer an unobtrusive method of continually monitoring physiological parameters during daily activities. Chemical analysis of body fluids, noninvasively, is a novel and exciting area of personalized wearable healthcare systems. BIOTEX was an EU-funded project that aimed to develop textile sensors to measure physiological parameters and the chemical composition of body fluids, with a particular interest in sweat. A wearable sensing system has been developed that integrates a textile-based fluid handling system for sample collection and transport with a number of sensors including sodium, conductivity, and pH sensors. Sensors for sweat rate, ECG, respiration, and blood oxygenation were also developed. For the first time, it has been possible to monitor a number of physiological parameters together with sweat composition in real time. This has been carried out via a network of wearable sensors distributed around the body of a subject user. This has huge implications for the field of sports and human performance and opens a whole new field of research in the clinical setting
The Evolution of First Person Vision Methods: A Survey
The emergence of new wearable technologies such as action cameras and
smart-glasses has increased the interest of computer vision scientists in the
First Person perspective. Nowadays, this field is attracting attention and
investments of companies aiming to develop commercial devices with First Person
Vision recording capabilities. Due to this interest, an increasing demand of
methods to process these videos, possibly in real-time, is expected. Current
approaches present a particular combinations of different image features and
quantitative methods to accomplish specific objectives like object detection,
activity recognition, user machine interaction and so on. This paper summarizes
the evolution of the state of the art in First Person Vision video analysis
between 1997 and 2014, highlighting, among others, most commonly used features,
methods, challenges and opportunities within the field.Comment: First Person Vision, Egocentric Vision, Wearable Devices, Smart
Glasses, Computer Vision, Video Analytics, Human-machine Interactio
Recognition of elementary arm movements using orientation of a tri-axial accelerometer located near the wrist
In this paper we present a method for recognising three fundamental movements of the human arm (reach and retrieve, lift cup to mouth, rotation of the arm) by determining the orientation of a tri-axial accelerometer located near the wrist. Our objective is to detect the occurrence of such movements performed with the impaired arm of a stroke patient during normal daily activities as a means to assess their rehabilitation. The method relies on accurately mapping transitions of predefined, standard orientations of the accelerometer to corresponding elementary arm movements. To evaluate the technique, kinematic data was collected from four healthy subjects and four stroke patients as they performed a number of activities involved in a representative activity of daily living, 'making-a-cup-of-tea'. Our experimental results show that the proposed method can independently recognise all three of the elementary upper limb movements investigated with accuracies in the range 91â99% for healthy subjects and 70â85% for stroke patients
Wearable Sensors and Smart Devices to Monitor Rehabilitation Parameters and Sports Performance: An Overview
A quantitative evaluation of kinetic parameters, the jointâs range of motion, heart rate, and breathing rate, can be employed in sports performance tracking and rehabilitation monitoring following injuries or surgical operations. However, many of the current detection systems are expensive and designed for clinical use, requiring the presence of a physician and medical staff to assist users in the deviceâs positioning and measurements. The goal of wearable sensors is to overcome the limitations of current devices, enabling the acquisition of a userâs vital signs directly from the body in an accurate and nonâinvasive way. In sports activities, wearable sensors allow athletes to monitor performance and body movements objectively, going beyond the coachâs subjective evaluation limits. The main goal of this review paper is to provide a comprehensive overview of wearable technologies and sensing systems to detect and monitor the physiological parameters of patients during postâoperative rehabilitation and athletesâ training, and to present evidence that supports the efïŹcacy of this technology for healthcare applications. First, a classiïŹcation of the human physiological parameters acquired from the human body by sensors attached to sensitive skin locations or worn as a part of garments is introduced, carrying important feedback on the userâs health status. Then, a detailed description of the electromechanical transduction mechanisms allows a comparison of the technologies used in wearable applications to monitor sports and rehabilitation activities. This paves the way for an analysis of wearable technologies, providing a comprehensive comparison of the current state of the art of available sensors and systems. Comparative and statistical analyses are provided to point out useful insights for deïŹning the best technologies and solutions for monitoring body movements. Lastly, the presented review is compared with similar ones reported in the literature to highlight its strengths and novelties
- âŠ