Using mobile phones to improve medication compliance and awareness for cardiac patients

Improving cardiac patients' medication compliance is a major factor in reducing mortality rate and reducing hospitalization rate. This paper describes a novel medication compliance management system. Its novelty lies in the combination of functionalities that helps the patient to comply with their medication regimen, together with a personal health monitoring system that monitors their health and collects vital signs data using a mobile phone and wireless bio sensors. The system is designed to collect and analyse medication compliance, side effects and symptom responses and transfers the collected data in real time to a web based system for remote monitoring by caregivers and health professionals. Health professionals can use the system to assess the effect of the medication regimen on their patients' health and adapt it to reduce side effects and maximise the patient's wellbeing. Copyright © 2010 ACM

Long short-term memory for indoor localization using WI-FI received signal strength and channel state information

Indoor location information is increasing in importance in contemporary communication services and applications. In this paper, we discuss the long short-term memory (LSTM) performance for indoor localization in non-line-of-sight (NLoS) conditions using the received signal strength (RSS) and channel state information (CSI) obtained from Wi-Fi signals. As such, we describe the CSI and RSS acquisition system that is used to build a rich dataset to experiment with classical machine learning and deep learning models. The distance range error matrix is combined with the confusion matrix to obtain the distance range error probability where we have demonstrated that the LSTM model exhibits a maximum range error of less than 5 m with 4% probability

Designing for Understanding: Helping Older Adults Understand Over-the-Counter Medication Information

This research is motivated by some of the challenges faced by the healthcare community in communicating health information to the public and the potential for user-centered technology design to address some of these limitations. Each year, thousands die or are injured due to adverse-drug events due to both prescription and over-the-counter medications. The integration of technology has improved the incidence rate for adverse-drug events due to prescription medications. Similarly, personal health records and other consumer-based health applications have been shown to be beneficial for helping individuals manage their health. Despite this growing body of research, little to no research has been conducted to gauge the possible effectiveness of technology created through a user-centered design process to assist consumers in understanding similar events due to over-the-counter medications. This research explores the implications for the design of interactive technology to help older adults understand the possible risk of an adverse drug events resulting from taking over-the-counter (OTC) medications. A user-centered design process was employed, leveraging various techniques to design technology to assist older adults with over-the-counter medication information. The three studies conducted for this research are part of an Exploratory Mixed-Methods Study, designed to identify current practices and challenges, identify opportunities for technology integration, and to examine the usability and effectiveness of the resultant technological artifacts for assisting older adults with over-the-counter medication information. Data collection included semi-structure interviews, surveys, questionnaires, and observations. Results from each study suggest that the technologies evaluated are useful for assisting older adults with over-the-counter medication information. Design recommendations identified throughout each phase are presented to provide insight on the technology features found useful and not so useful by older adults throughout the process of this research

Understanding Patients’ Compliance Behavior in a Mobile Healthcare System: The Role of Trust and Planned Behavior

The ultimate goal of any prescribed medical therapy is to achieve desired outcomes for patients. However, patient non-compliance has long been a major problem detrimental to patients’ health and thus is a concern of all healthcare providers. Patient trust in doctors and patient-doctor communication have been identified as critical factors influencing patient compliance. Nevertheless, little is known about the role of mobile technologies in patient compliance. The purpose of this paper is to predict and empirically demonstrate how mobile healthcare applications juxtaposed to patient trust can increase patients’ compliance. We conducted a field survey with 125 patients in the United States. PLS techniques were employed to analyze our dataset. The results reveal that patient-doctor communication and the use of mobile system significantly impact patients’ trust, which has a prominent effect on patient compliance attitude. We also find that behavioral intention, response efficacy, and self-efficacy positively influence patients’ actual compliance behavior

VCare: A Personal Emergency Response System to Promote Safe and Independent Living Among Elders Staying by Themselves in Community or Residential Settings

‘Population aging’ is a growing concern for most of us living in the twenty first century, primarily because many of us in the next few years will have a senior person to care for - spending money towards their healthcare expenditures AND/OR having to balance a full-time job with the responsibility of care-giving, travelling from another city to be with this elderly citizen who might be our parent, grand-parent or even community elders. As informal care-givers, if somehow we were able to monitor the day-to-day activities of our elderly dependents, and be alerted when wrong happens to them that would be of great help and lower the care-giving burden considerably. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can certainly help in such a scenario, with tools and techniques that ensure safe living for the individual we are caring for, and save us from a lot of worry by providing us with anytime access into their lives or activities, and as a result check their functional state. However, we should be mindful of the tactics that could be adopted by harm causers to steal data stored in these products and try to curb the associated service costs. In short, we are in need of robust, cost-effective, useful, and secure solutions to help elders in our society to ‘age gracefully’. This work is a little step taken towards that direction. ‘Population aging’ is a growing concern for most of us living in the twenty first century, primarily because many of us in the next few years will have a senior person to care for - spending money towards their healthcare expenditures AND/OR having to balance a full-time job with the responsibility of care-giving, travelling from another city to be with this elderly citizen who might be our parent, grand-parent or even community elders. As informal care-givers, if somehow we were able to monitor the day-to-day activities of our elderly dependents, and be alerted when wrong happens to them that would be of great help and lower the care-giving burden considerably. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can certainly help in such a scenario, with tools and techniques that ensure safe living for the individual we are caring for, and save us from a lot of worry by providing us with anytime access into their lives or activities, and as a result check their functional state. However, we should be mindful of the tactics that could be adopted by harm causers to steal data stored in these products and try to curb the associated service costs. In short, we are in need of robust, cost-effective, useful, and secure solutions to help elders in our society to ‘age gracefully’. This work is a little step taken towards that direction. Advisor: Tadeusz Wysock

Suite of Applications for Recording, Evaluating and Presenting Information for Physicians

Import 04/07/2011Tato práce se zabývá problematikou monitorování epileptiků a jejich záchvatů převážně v době spánku. Dále se zabývá problematikou správného umístění senzorů EKG na těle pacienta. Cílem je vytvořit aplikaci, komunikující se sadou externích zařízení, například prostřednictvím sériového portu počítače. Práce dále pojednává o možnostech využití webových kamer a pokročilé počítačové grafice v podobě modelování postavy pacienta. Implementace aplikace je v prostředí Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0.This thesis describes problematic about monitoring epileptics and their seizures especially during the night. Also this thesis describes problematic of correct placement of ECG sensors on the patient’s body. The goal is create an application which will communicate with external devices for example via serial port of computer. The thesis also discusses the possibilities of using web cameras and advanced computer graphics like creating 3D model of patient. Application is implemented in Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0.460 - Katedra informatikyvýborn

Information technology for active ageing: A review of theory and practice

Active Ageing aims to foster a physically, mentally and socially active lifestyle as a person ages. It is a complex, multi-faceted problem that involves a variety of different actors, such as policy makers, doctors, care givers, family members, friends and, of course, older adults. This review aims to understand the role of a new actor, which increasingly plays the role of enabler and facilitator, i.e., that of the technology provider. The review specifically focuses on Information Technology (IT), with a particular emphasis on software applications, and on how IT can prevent decline, compensate for lost capabilities, aid care, and enhance existing capabilities. The analysis confirms the crucial role of IT in Active Ageing, shows that Active Ageing requires a multidisciplinary approach, and identifies the need for better integration of hardware, software, the environment and the involved actors

Recent Advances in Indoor Localization: A Survey on Theoretical Approaches and Applications

Nowadays, the availability of the location information becomes a key factor in today’s communications systems for allowing location based services. In outdoor scenarios, the Mobile Terminal (MT) position is obtained with high accuracy thanks to the Global Positioning System (GPS) or to the standalone cellular systems. However, the main problem of GPS or cellular systems resides in the indoor environment and in scenarios with deep shadowing effect where the satellite or cellular signals are broken. In this paper, we will present a review over different technologies and concepts used to improve indoor localization. Additionally, we will discuss different applications based on different localization approaches. Finally, comprehensive challenges in terms of accuracy, cost, complexity, security, scalability, etc. are presente

Using a mobile pill reminder to support medication compliance in South Africa

This project investigated how to develop a mobile intervention to support medication compliance for patients with chronic and acute diseases. Chronic diseases cannot be cured but can be controlled, usually by taking medication every-day. Therefore, it is very crucial for a patient with a chronic disease to take their medication on time to prevent complications or negative impact on their health. Due to the widespread use of mobile phones, having an automated mobile mechanism to remind patients to take medication is regarded as an effective way of supporting medication compliance. The focus of the research was on investigating how mobile health applications can be used to support patients with chronic and acute diseases in South Africa. Literature identified that medication compliance is low and that a need exists for an intervention to increase compliance. The main goal of this research was to produce a mobile health application to assist medication compliance and support patients with chronic and acute diseases in South Africa and investigate its perceived usefulness. The project made use of two field studies to substantiate its results. The first field study involved patients with chronic diseases and the second one involved patients with acute diseases. The feedback from the first field study and from a literature review was used to redesign the mobile application. The project also investigated the attitude of patients taking medication over a short period of time as well as how such patients compared with those taking chronic medication. The project identified the benefits and disadvantages of using an m-health application to support medication compliance based on the participants’ feedback and behaviour observed in using the application