This paper describes an advanced care and alert portable telemedical monitor (AMON), a wearable medical monitoring and alert system targeting high-risk cardiac/respiratory patients. The system includes continuous collection and evaluation of multiple vital signs, intelligent multiparameter medical emergency detection, and a cellular connection to a medical center. By integrating the whole system in an unobtrusive, wrist-worn enclosure and applying aggressive low-power design techniques, continuous long-term monitoring can be performed without interfering with the patients' everyday activities and without restricting their mobility. In the first two and a half years of this EU IST sponsored project, the AMON consortium has designed, implemented, and tested the described wrist-worn device, a communication link, and a comprehensive medical center software package. The performance of the system has been validated by a medical study with a set of 33 subjects. The paper describes the main concepts behind the AMON system and presents details of the individual subsystems and solutions as well as the results of the medical validation.

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Wearable medical devices can provide both continuous monitoring and ubiquitous treatment. Challenges in this area include the need for a low-power/power-saving design to extend battery life and to reduce the size of the battery itself. This is followed by size and weight restrictions to meet patient expectations of what is 'wearable', the biocompatibility of all outer housings and the final assembly concept. Two examples of wearable medical device are described: a wrist-wearable telemedicine monitor for heart patients (AMON) and a generic belt-integrated computing platform for home and hospital use (QBIC). The electrocardiogram (ECG), the blood oxygen saturation (SpO2) sensor and the blood pressure meter of the AMON device were tested with 29 subjects. The sensors were found to be functional, but as expected the data processing algorithms will need some fine-tuning. The prototype QBIC demonstrates a size reduction of 30-50% in relation to comparable devices.

In this paper, we present and discuss the evaluation of end user acceptance of a wrist device, designed to monitor vital signs and to detect adverse situations, such as falls, unconsciousness etc. and, if necessary, to alert emergency services to the wearers need. The goals of all concerned must be taken into account if the technological advances are to be of benefit to those for whom they are being designed. After the technical assessment was made, a further study of the end users views was aimed to show the acceptance levels of elderly end users to the idea of personal monitoring, its perceived usefulness in their every day lives, and their judgment of the design. This was made in the form of a questionnaire divided into five main areas: usefulness, attractiveness, usability, comfort and acceptance, and each end user was interviewed regarding their goals. Each of the interviewees regarded their own continuing independence as a primary goal; however their views as to the possibility of achieving this goal by the use of advanced technology differed. This work was completed as part of the EMERGE project, aimed at the support of elderly people in everyday life using innovative monitoring and assistance systems, with the use of ambient and unobtrusive sensors in order to increase their safety, thereby promoting a longer period of independence, a step made necessary by the demographic increase in the elderly population in Europe