Wireless sensor networks for in-home healthcare: issues, trend and prospect

As the world's population ages, those suffering from diseases of the elderly will increase. The health care expenditures will increase rapidly and become non-affordable for the governments around the world. New technology and new model for patient healthcare must be found to relieve the pressure of finance and society. In-home pervasive networks may assist residents by providing memory enhancement, control of home appliances, medical data lookup, and emergency communication. Cooperation between wireless sensor networks and existing consumer electronic infrastructures can assist in the areas of health care and patient monitoring. This will improve the quality of life of patients, provide early detection for certain ailments, and improve doctor-patient efficiency. In this paper we detail some basal concepts of wireless sensor network first. The possible security issues, privacy issues and legal issues are argued at the second part. The prospect and function of next generation smart homecare based on wireless senor network will be shown at the last part.