Game-changing opportunities for wireless personal healthcare and lifestyle

In recent years, Personalized, Predictive, Preventive, and Participatory health care have become more than just buzzwords. Silicon is playing an important enabling role in this gradual, but certain revolution of our healthcare system: Silicon will become more essential, in view of the many challenges in realizing ubiquitous monitoring, real-time diagnostics, and patient-centric therapies. By reviewing world-wide technology breakthroughs, as well as healthcare related trials with wireless sensors in Body-Area-Network (BAN) configura tions, we will demonstrate that application validation for personal diagnostics and theranostic products is driving game-changing circuit and system innova tion. Visionary applications such as brain-computer interfaces sound like magic! However, with every new generation of technology and application algorithms, wearable wireless systems become less obtrusive, higher per forming, and more autonomous. The envisaged large-scale deployment of wearable healthcare and lifestyle add-ons that can monitor systemic factors such as stress and emotions, will revolutionize how we live, play, and work. But, none of these developments is heralding a "Brave New World"; instead, they will foster and strengthen the role and impact of each individual along the path to a longer, healthier and happier life.