Utility of mass-market technologies to enable care provided by laypersons in the home environment

Tele-consultation systems for evaluating support of the caregivers of stroke patients are currently being evaluated by a team of engineers and clinicians at our institution. One proposed system utilizes low-cost commercial tele-conferencing and vital signs monitoring solutions to improve access to care for in-home stroke patients and to provide educational and training support for their caregivers. Preliminary assessment of existing equipment indicates that quality of care for patients and caregiver support may be limited by the bandwidth of conventional telephone lines, but can be improved with increasing data transmission speeds.