Monitoring activities of daily living based on wearable wireless body sensor network

Abstract

With recent advances in microprocessor chip technology, wireless communication, and biomedical engineering it is possible to develop miniaturized ubiquitous health monitoring devices that are capable of recording physiological and movement signals during daily life activities. The aim of the research is to implement and test the prototype of health monitoring system. The system consists of the body central unit with Bluetooth module and wearable sensors: the custom-designed ECG sensor, the temperature sensor, the skin humidity sensor and accelerometers placed on the human body or integrated with clothes and a network gateway to forward data to a remote medical server. The system includes custom-designed transmission protocol and remote web-based graphical user interface for remote real time data analysis. Experimental results for a group of humans who performed various activities (eg. working, running, etc.) showed maximum 5% absolute error compared to certified medical devices. The results are promising and indicate that developed wireless wearable monitoring system faces challenges of multi-sensor human health monitoring during performing daily activities and opens new opportunities in developing novel healthcare services.

Smart Materials for Wearable Healthcare Devices

“…Levels of sweat metabolites (such as lactate and uric acid) and electrolytes (metal ions, such as sodium and potassium), as well as skin humidity, are useful physiological parameter indirectly reflecting health status of an individual, and can potentially be used to probe body conditions by non-invasive monitoring [21,23,33,34,37,99]. Table 1 summarizes the use of sweat body fluids as physiological biomarkers [7,8,27,33]. The concentration of uric acid and urea in sweat is much higher in uremic patients [100].…”

“…These devices have gained considerable attention owing to their ease of collection of crucial information in real-time regarding a wearer's health, both continuously and non-invasively [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. In contrast to the traditional non-invasive methodologies (e.g., X-ray, type-B ultrasonic, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)), non-invasive diagnosis implemented by wearable devices creates new opportunities for remote and continuous healthcare monitoring in non-clinical settings [5,8], with the ability to detect developing diseases at intervals between routine examinations. The use of wearable healthcare devices also encourages people to take greater interest in their own healthcare in a more convenient and cheaper way, thereby improving their compliance.…”

“…By continuous or frequent detection of the level of physical markers (e.g. pressure pulses and body temperature) using different sensing techniques, wearable devices can provide one of the most comprehensive feedbacks on human health states [7,8,19,22,[24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32]. Perspiration contains a diversity of chemical species (e.g.…”

An Autonomous Wireless Health Monitoring System Based on Heartbeat and Accelerometer Sensors

“…Recently, the design and development of VSMSs has been a topic of strong interest for researchers. Two important parameters for these systems, HR and FD, have been considered in previous works [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14].…”

An IoT-aware AAL System to Capture Behavioral Changes of Elderly People

“…AAL technologies can also provide more safety for the elderly, offering emergency response mechanisms [2], fall detection solutions [3], and video surveillance systems [4]. Moreover, other AAL technologies were designed in order to provide support in the daily life, by monitoring the activities of daily living (ADL) [5], by generating reminders [6], as well as by allowing older adults to connect with their family and the medical staff.…”