2006 Pervasive Health Conference and Workshops

We describe the user-centered development process of MARiS, a PDA-based mobile frontend to a hospital information system. It allows mobile access to patient records, and the documentation of diagnoses and treatments as they happen. While similar applications have been studied in research contexts, we developed a system which was tested with a considerable user base and which is currently in produc... View full abstract»

Heart rate profile related to exercise or other physical activities can be a crucial indicator of individual health according to recent researches. This makes heart rate measurement without interfering ongoing activity plays an important role in medical services and pervasive computing applications. However, there are challenges for wearable apparatuses to measure the heart rate in good accuracy a... View full abstract»

Healthcare professionals working in highly dynamic hospital environments typically have correspondingly dynamic schedules that are difficult to manage. Emergent tasks and shifting priorities result in existing schedules becoming obsolete. Pervasive computing technology can aid Healthcare professionals in organising daily activities by exploiting knowledge of planned and emerging tasks, of patients... View full abstract»

This paper presents our early experiences with the design of digital technology that aims to support the process of collaborative articulation taking place at patient-caregiver consultations during post surgery rehabilitation. Augmentable paper documents (CARE paper) can be powerful resources in this process for caregiver as well as patient. The CARE paper can carry links to digital media. A proto... View full abstract»

Diagnosis is an important process in patient care. A suitable diagnosis helps a physician determine a precise treatment. Physicians also have a tendency to seek collaboration from other colleagues and expert systems for better confidence in their decision. The sources of knowledge can be both human in the form of medical specialist, and artificial in the form of expert systems connected through In... View full abstract»

This paper presents the physical and digital design of a wireless biomonitoring system meant to be used especially in the prehospital medical emergency response. The handling of many patients with a minimum of resources at major incidents is an immense challenge for the emergency personnel at work on an accident site. New technology such as the BlueBio biomonitoring system, can help emergency pers... View full abstract»

Ambient Intelligence based home care systems (AHCS) have the potential to overcome problems current home care systems are facing with. On the downside, engineering full-fledged AHCS is a non-trivial task, and convincing solutions are still lacking. Current approaches still are focused mainly on technology rather than the user perspective and fail to address usability issues. Additionally, most sol... View full abstract»

This paper introduces a method for automatic fall detection, targeted towards the monitoring of elderly people in a nursing home or in their natural home environment. The method uses information extracted from images obtained using novel 3D camera technology, combined with a context model. Visual information consists of body orientation calculated from posture extraction and of periods of inactivi... View full abstract»

The study investigates, assesses and evaluates data security and patients' privacy in a real-time wireless telemedicine system utilising GSM/GPRS, BLUETOOTH protocol, and a cellular phone. Fifteen non-risky heart patients, aged (49plusmn14) years (9 females, 6 male) were recruited. The ECGs were continuously monitored (72 h) and transferred anonymously; assigning each patient an identification num... View full abstract»

Obesity is a major public health challenge with over 65% of U.S. adults either overweight or obese. Estimated annual costs of obesity are around $78.5 billion. Self-monitoring is a critical skill for successful weight management. However, self-monitoring is labor-intensive and compliance is often difficult. In this paper, we describe the Patient-Centered Assessment and Counseling Mobile Energy Bal... View full abstract»

We present our findings in using musical feedback to enhance exercise performance by means of a prototype named MPTrain. MPTrain is a mobile and personal system that users wear while exercising. It consists of a set of physiological sensors (heart rate and accelerometer) wirelessly connected to a mobile phone carried by the user. MPTrain's software allows the user to enter a desired workout in ter... View full abstract»

This paper presents the findings of a qualitative study on the perceptions and thoughts of elderly people on the use of current sensor network technology for assisted aged care. Focus groups of elderly people were presented with examples of current sensor nodes and example scenarios of their use, and then invited to provide input on a range of issues surrounding the design and use of the technolog... View full abstract»

This paper describes work in progress evaluating a smart flat for people with dementia that is part of an Extra-Care development in London. The flat has been let to a permanent tenant who has dementia. They are fitted with a KNX (EIB) based integrated smart house system providing local intervention and monitoring in the event of a problem being detected by the built in distributed sensor network. ... View full abstract»

This paper proposes a service discovery protocol for sensor networks that is specifically tailored for use in human-centered pervasive environments. It uses the high-level concept of computational activities (as logical bundles of data and resources) to give sensors in activity-based sensor networks (ABSNs) knowledge about their usage even at the network layer. ABSN redesigns classical network-lev... View full abstract»

A new method for recording mechanocardiogram was presented. The presented method aims at non-intrusive measurement of pre-ejection period (PEP) in usual daily life. The presented method utilized a pressure sensor, EMFi, which was attached to the back of a chair. By the pressure sensor, the variation in pressure (mechanocardiogram) at the subject's back was measured. As a reference, impedance-cardi... View full abstract»

The proliferation of cellular networks is enabling the penetration of low-cost mobile devices and the development of pervasive, quality healthcare systems. Through mobile stations, sensing devices performing monitoring functions can send patient information directly to physicians and other healthcare providers at remote hospitals and clinics - reducing the need to travel. However, current wireless... View full abstract»

Advances in embedded computing systems have resulted in the emergence of wireless sensor networks, which provide unique opportunities for monitoring and controlling homes, cities and the environments. Recently, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have been proposed for hospital/medical care environments to support automated data collection, which is then integrated into the patient care record system.... View full abstract»

Public health promotion technology should be accessible to the general public at which it is aimed. This paper explores the potential for use of an unaugmented commodity technology - the mobile phone - as a health promotion tool. We describe a prototype application that tracks the daily exercise activities of people carrying phones, using fluctuation in signal strength to estimate a user's movemen... View full abstract»

Virtual electronic patient records (VEPR) enable the integration and sharing of healthcare information within large and heterogeneous organizations. The use of wireless technology can improve and hasten healthcare treatment because it brings information to the point of decision allowing also for users' mobility. This use has to comply with security requirements as the wireless technology introduce... View full abstract»

As agents, we act upon the world with our body, and we experience ourselves, and the world through the same body. This fact implies that the sense of self is crucially dependent on motor-efferent and sensory-afferent signals. The exact nature of sensory-motor interactions that generate a sense of self is still unknown. This research aims to empirically identify the basic neuro-cognitive principles... View full abstract»

This paper proposes a framework for patient's vital sign representations. This framework offers the flexibility to extend or to augment represented vital signs, e.g. with trend signs or professional's annotations. It further enables multi standard representations of vital signs and meta-level information for processing of represented vital signs. Vital signs represented in accordance with this fra... View full abstract»

The aim of this work is to study the application of ultra wideband (UWB) technology to perform biomedical sensing and vital signs monitoring in humans. Among the numerous signals that can be measured, the heart rate (HR) is chosen as the first objective due to its importance. The research is pointed towards the development of a technique that can allow both, radar sensing and communications using ... View full abstract»

This paper presents some early design work of an innovative concept of an incubator, carried out under the European project Palcom. Gaining a comprehensive understanding of user requirements in care settings poses interesting methodological challenges. This paper details some methodological options for developing technologies which allow end-user composition and re-configurability, and documents h... View full abstract»

The current article investigates the affordances associated with paper out of the motivation that this can help inform design of pervasive and ubiquitous computing solutions for clinical use. In particular, we focus on paper-based medication charts, and discuss how these artifacts differ from various digital and context-aware solutions both in terms of media properties and functionalities. Based o... View full abstract»

Hospitals are convenient settings for the deployment of context-aware applications. The Information needs of hospital workers are highly dependent on contextual variables, such as location, role and activity. While some of these parameters can be easily determined, others, such as activity are much more complex to estimate. This paper describes an approach to estimate the activity being performed ... View full abstract»