The Role of the Internet of Things in Health Care: A Systematic and Comprehensive Study

The Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming an emerging trend and has significant potential to replace other technologies, where researchers consider it as the future of the internet. It has given tremendous support and become the building blocks in the development of important cyber-physical systems and it is being severed in a variety of application domains, including healthcare. A methodological evolution of the Internet of Things, enabled it to extend to the physical world beyond the electronic world by connecting miscellaneous devices through the internet, thus making everything is connected. In recent years it has gained higher attention for its potential to alleviate the strain on the healthcare sector caused by the rising and aging population along with the increase in chronic diseases and global pandemics. This paper surveys about various usages of IoT healthcare technologies and reviews the state of the art services and applications, recent trends in IoT based healthcare solutions, and various challenges posed including security and privacy issues, which researchers, service providers and end users need to pay higher attention. Further, this paper discusses how innovative IoT enabled technologies like cloud computing, fog computing, blockchain, and big data can be used to leverage modern healthcare facilities and mitigate the burden on healthcare resources

Central monitoring system for ambient assisted living

Smart homes for aged care enable the elderly to stay in their own homes longer. By means of various types of ambient and wearable sensors information is gathered on people living in smart homes for aged care. This information is then processed to determine the activities of daily living (ADL) and provide vital information to carers. Many examples of smart homes for aged care can be found in literature, however, little or no evidence can be found with respect to interoperability of various sensors and devices along with associated functions. One key element with respect to interoperability is the central monitoring system in a smart home. This thesis analyses and presents key functions and requirements of a central monitoring system. The outcomes of this thesis may benefit developers of smart homes for aged care

State of the art of audio- and video based solutions for AAL

Working Group 3. Audio- and Video-based AAL ApplicationsIt is a matter of fact that Europe is facing more and more crucial challenges regarding health and social care due to the demographic change and the current economic context. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has stressed this situation even further, thus highlighting the need for taking action. Active and Assisted Living (AAL) technologies come as a viable approach to help facing these challenges, thanks to the high potential they have in enabling remote care and support. Broadly speaking, AAL can be referred to as the use of innovative and advanced Information and Communication Technologies to create supportive, inclusive and empowering applications and environments that enable older, impaired or frail people to live independently and stay active longer in society. AAL capitalizes on the growing pervasiveness and effectiveness of sensing and computing facilities to supply the persons in need with smart assistance, by responding to their necessities of autonomy, independence, comfort, security and safety. The application scenarios addressed by AAL are complex, due to the inherent heterogeneity of the end-user population, their living arrangements, and their physical conditions or impairment. Despite aiming at diverse goals, AAL systems should share some common characteristics. They are designed to provide support in daily life in an invisible, unobtrusive and user-friendly manner. Moreover, they are conceived to be intelligent, to be able to learn and adapt to the requirements and requests of the assisted people, and to synchronise with their specific needs. Nevertheless, to ensure the uptake of AAL in society, potential users must be willing to use AAL applications and to integrate them in their daily environments and lives. In this respect, video- and audio-based AAL applications have several advantages, in terms of unobtrusiveness and information richness. Indeed, cameras and microphones are far less obtrusive with respect to the hindrance other wearable sensors may cause to one’s activities. In addition, a single camera placed in a room can record most of the activities performed in the room, thus replacing many other non-visual sensors. Currently, video-based applications are effective in recognising and monitoring the activities, the movements, and the overall conditions of the assisted individuals as well as to assess their vital parameters (e.g., heart rate, respiratory rate). Similarly, audio sensors have the potential to become one of the most important modalities for interaction with AAL systems, as they can have a large range of sensing, do not require physical presence at a particular location and are physically intangible. Moreover, relevant information about individuals’ activities and health status can derive from processing audio signals (e.g., speech recordings). Nevertheless, as the other side of the coin, cameras and microphones are often perceived as the most intrusive technologies from the viewpoint of the privacy of the monitored individuals. This is due to the richness of the information these technologies convey and the intimate setting where they may be deployed. Solutions able to ensure privacy preservation by context and by design, as well as to ensure high legal and ethical standards are in high demand. After the review of the current state of play and the discussion in GoodBrother, we may claim that the first solutions in this direction are starting to appear in the literature. A multidisciplinary 4 debate among experts and stakeholders is paving the way towards AAL ensuring ergonomics, usability, acceptance and privacy preservation. The DIANA, PAAL, and VisuAAL projects are examples of this fresh approach. This report provides the reader with a review of the most recent advances in audio- and video-based monitoring technologies for AAL. It has been drafted as a collective effort of WG3 to supply an introduction to AAL, its evolution over time and its main functional and technological underpinnings. In this respect, the report contributes to the field with the outline of a new generation of ethical-aware AAL technologies and a proposal for a novel comprehensive taxonomy of AAL systems and applications. Moreover, the report allows non-technical readers to gather an overview of the main components of an AAL system and how these function and interact with the end-users. The report illustrates the state of the art of the most successful AAL applications and functions based on audio and video data, namely (i) lifelogging and self-monitoring, (ii) remote monitoring of vital signs, (iii) emotional state recognition, (iv) food intake monitoring, activity and behaviour recognition, (v) activity and personal assistance, (vi) gesture recognition, (vii) fall detection and prevention, (viii) mobility assessment and frailty recognition, and (ix) cognitive and motor rehabilitation. For these application scenarios, the report illustrates the state of play in terms of scientific advances, available products and research project. The open challenges are also highlighted. The report ends with an overview of the challenges, the hindrances and the opportunities posed by the uptake in real world settings of AAL technologies. In this respect, the report illustrates the current procedural and technological approaches to cope with acceptability, usability and trust in the AAL technology, by surveying strategies and approaches to co-design, to privacy preservation in video and audio data, to transparency and explainability in data processing, and to data transmission and communication. User acceptance and ethical considerations are also debated. Finally, the potentials coming from the silver economy are overviewed.publishedVersio

A Survey on Various Congestion Control Techniques in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are made up of small battery-powered sensors that can sense and monitor a variety of environmental conditions. These devices are self-contained and fault tolerant. The majority of WSNs are built to perform data collection tasks. These data are gathered and then sent to the sink node. Small packets are sent towards the sink node in such cases, and as a result, the areas near the sink node become congested, becoming the bottleneck of the entire network. In this paper, a survey of existing techniques or methods for detecting and eliminating congestions is conducted. Finally, a comparison in the form of a table based on various matrices is presented

A Conceptual Model using Ambient Assisted Living to Provide a Home Proactive Monitoring System for Elderly People in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

The growth in the ageing population is rapidly increasing and their care cost will be a challenging issue in the future. The number of elderly people worldwide (defined as those aged 60 years and older) was 202 million in 1950; this number has since quadrupled to reach 901 million and is expected to triple again by 2100. In particular, the number of elderly people in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is increasing rapidly, from 5% of the total population in 2015 to a forecasted 20.9% by 2050. Clearly, the cost of taking care of elderly people is already a challenge, but it will be very difficult to meet in the future, when it will lead to a much higher expenditure on healthcare facilities. Furthermore, although elderly people are vulnerable to a decline in their health, they do not wish to live as they did in the 1970s to 1990s. Instead, their desire is to live independently in their own homes and continue to practice normal activities. In fact, Saudi culture is changing, and the children tend not to live with their parents as they used to. However, the literature review indicates that there is a lack of professionally designed systems that can fulfil the growing needs or requirements of elderly people in the KSA. These demographic changes raise a number of challenges related to the elderly people’s quality of life, including health, autonomy, care, social communication, and the utilisation of institutional services. These challenges require novel approaches to provide dependable self-adapting technological innovations. The era of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has changed the world of the ageing population. Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) aims to improve the quality of life of elderly people, and to provide them with technologies and services that support their daily activities, help them to live longer and remain independently at home. The aims and objectives of this research are to review Ambient Assisted Living Technology, to provide examples of relevant technologies and applications, and to examine attitudes and perceptions of elderly people towards using AAL technologies in the KSA. This research also explores the factors of AAL, identifying those that affect the adoption of these technologies in the KSA, by conducting a systematic review, and using quantitative and qualitative analyses. The questionnaire results showed that elderly Saudi Arabians are willing and intending to accept and use AAL technologies, and that there are many factors that influence their adoption and use of AAL technologies. This provides an insight for solutions to the provision of support for their independent living. Thus, we developed a conceptual model using AAL to provide a Home Proactive Monitoring System (AALHPMS) that supports the stakeholders in adopting AAL technologies. We envisage that the AALHPMS can fulfil the needs and requirements of elderly people, motivate healthcare providers to implement AAL technologies, and assist the Saudi Government to make suitable provision for issues associated with the ageing population. In addition, a knowledge-based-system was built using a rule-based system. Experiments using Smart watches were conducted to monitor the heart rates. Further experiments using ZigBee, Bluetooth beacons, and surveillance cameras technology were also undertaken for monitoring the movement of elderly persons at their home. A website was also developed to disseminate knowledge related to ageing population and AAL technology in Saudi Arabia

A Sensing Platform to Monitor Sleep Efficiency

Sleep plays a fundamental role in the human life. Sleep research is mainly focused on the understanding of the sleep patterns, stages and duration. An accurate sleep monitoring can detect early signs of sleep deprivation and insomnia consequentially implementing mechanisms for preventing and overcoming these problems. Recently, sleep monitoring has been achieved using wearable technologies, able to analyse also the body movements, but old people can encounter some difficulties in using and maintaining these devices. In this paper, we propose an unobtrusive sensing platform able to analyze body movements, infer sleep duration and awakenings occurred along the night, and evaluating the sleep efficiency index. To prove the feasibility of the suggested method we did a pilot trial in which several healthy users have been involved. The sensors were installed within the bed and, on each day, each user was administered with the Groningen Sleep Quality Scale questionnaire to evaluate the user’s perceived sleep quality. Finally, we show potential correlation between a perceived evaluation with an objective index as the sleep efficiency.</p

A holistic review and framework for sustainable business models for assisted living technologies and services

Despite heavy investment in health and social care sectors in the UK, large scale deployment of assisted living technologies and services (ALTS) continues to face significant obstacles, and the lack of sustainable business models (BM) is widely regarded as one of the greatest hindrances. Based on a systematic review of previous studies, this paper identifies current trends in digital technologies and how they are used in assisted living. We categorise and analyse these technologies and through the lens of diffusion of innovation theory (DOI), we review the concepts and frameworks of BM as used in the literature to suggest conceptual frameworks for sustainable BMs for scalable ALTS in digital economy. This is expected to help in reducing the pressure on the already stretched health and social care services in the UK and other similar economies. Our approach suggests that BM canvas and DOI innovation diffusion characteristics are complements, not substitutes