The LifeShirt system for wireless patient monitoring in the operating room

Application of Wearable Sensors in the Treatment of Cervical Spondylosis Radiculopathy with Acupuncture

Research shows that cervical spondylosis radiculopathy (CSR) is the most common type of cervical spondylosis in clinic, and Chinese medicine treatment has obvious advantages, among which acupuncture therapy has received increasing attention. CSR has the characteristics of high incidence, long treatment time, and easy recurrence after treatment. In order to meet the different needs of different patients, this paper uses wearable sensors to collect patient dynamic data, extracts the action features of cervical spondylosis to design a scoring system, analyzes the input feature scores through a convolutional neural network (CNN) model, and then outputs personalized acupuncture treatment plan. The development status of wearable sensors at home and abroad is introduced, and the modules and functions of the wearable sensors are designed. The CNN network is used as the network model for classification and recognition. The experimental results show that the CNN model used in this paper has a high classification accuracy, achieving an accuracy of up to 97%, and can help produce an effective treatment plan. In order to determine whether the treatment plan output by the model is effective, each group of data is handed over to two cervical spondylosis experts for scoring, and then the final treatment plan is determined from 10 acupuncture plans. In our experiments, 9 out of 10 plans generated by the CNN model were the same as generated by the experts, which shows the effectiveness of the model.

Smart Shirts for Monitoring Physiological Parameters: Scoping Review

BACKGROUND

The recent trends of technological innovation and widescale digitization as potential solutions to challenges in health care, sports, and emergency service operations have led to the conception of smart textile technology. In health care, these smart textile systems present the potential to aid preventative medicine and early diagnosis through continuous, noninvasive tracking of physical and mental health while promoting proactive involvement of patients in their medical management. In areas such as sports and emergency response, the potential to provide comprehensive and simultaneous physiological insights across multiple body systems is promising. However, it is currently unclear what type of evidence exists surrounding the use of smart textiles for the monitoring of physiological outcome measures across different settings.

OBJECTIVE

This scoping review aimed to systematically survey the existing body of scientific literature surrounding smart textiles in their most prevalent form, the smart shirt, for monitoring physiological outcome measures.

METHODS

A total of 5 electronic bibliographic databases were systematically searched (Ovid Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online, Excerpta Medica database, Scopus, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, and SPORTDiscus). Publications from the inception of the database to June 24, 2019 were reviewed. Nonindexed literature relevant to this review was also systematically searched. The results were then collated, summarized, and reported.

RESULTS

Following the removal of duplicates, 7871 citations were identified. On the basis of title and abstract screening, 7632 citations were excluded, whereas 239 were retrieved and assessed for eligibility. Of these, 101 citations were included in the final analysis. Included studies were categorized into four themes: (1) prototype design, (2) validation, (3) observational, and (4) reviews. Among the 101 analyzed studies, prototype design was the most prevalent theme (50/101, 49.5%), followed by validation (29/101, 28.7%), observational studies (21/101, 20.8%), and reviews (1/101, 0.1%). Presented prototype designs ranged from those capable of monitoring one physiological metric to those capable of monitoring several simultaneously. In 29 validation studies, 16 distinct smart shirts were validated against reference technology under various conditions and work rates, including rest, submaximal exercise, and maximal exercise. The identified observational studies used smart shirts in clinical, healthy, and occupational populations for aims such as early diagnosis and stress detection. One scoping review was identified, investigating the use of smart shirts for electrocardiograph signal monitoring in cardiac patients.

CONCLUSIONS

Although smart shirts have been found to be valid and reliable in the monitoring of specific physiological metrics, results were variable for others, demonstrating the need for further systematic validation. Analysis of the results has also demonstrated gaps in knowledge, such as a considerable lag of validation and observational studies in comparison with prototype design and limited investigation using smart shirts in pediatric, elite sports, and emergency service populations.

Technology anxiety and resistance to change behavioral study of a wearable cardiac warming system using an extended TAM for older adults

With advances in technology, wireless and sensor technologies represent a method for continuously recording people’s biomedical signals, which may enhance the diagnosis and treatment of users’ everyday health conditions. These technologies mostly target older adults. In this study, we examine a smart clothing system targeting clinically high-risk patients, including older adults with cardiovascular disease (31 outpatients) and older adults in general (81 participants), to obtain an understanding of the patients’ perception of using wearable healthcare technologies. Given that technology anxiety has been shown to affect users’ resistance to using new technology and that perceived ubiquity is considered a characteristic of wearable devices and other mobile wireless technologies, we included three external variables: i.e., technology anxiety, perceived ubiquity, and resistance to change, in addition to the traditional components of the technology acceptance model (TAM). The results of the hypothesized model showed that among older adults in general, technology anxiety had a negative effect on the perceived ease of use and perceived ubiquity. The perceived ubiquity construct affects both user groups’ perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness of wearing smart clothes. Most relationships among the original constructs of the TAM were validated in older adults in general. Interestingly, we found that perceived usefulness had an indirect effect on behavioral intention through attitude. These results further confirm the validity of the extended TAM in determining older users’ technology acceptance behavior.

A Review and Classification of Assisted Living Systems

Europe’s social agenda for the “active elderly” is based upon a series of programs that provide a flexible infrastructure for their lives so that they are motivated, engaged in lifelong learning, and contributing to society. Economically speaking, Europe must engage in active aging research in order to avoid unsustainable health costs, and ambient assisted living (AAL) systems provide a platform for the elderly to remain living independently. This paper reviews research conducted within the area of AAL, and offers a taxonomy within which such systems may be classified. This classification distinguishes itself from others in that it categorises AAL systems in a top-down fashion, with the most important categories placed immediately to the left. In this paper, each section is explored further, and AAL systems are the focus. Entire AAL systems still cannot be fully evaluated, but their constituent technical parts can be assessed. The activities of daily living (ADLs) component was given further priority due to its potential for system evaluation, based on its ability to recognise ADLs with reasonable accuracy.

Development of a Wearable Instrumented Vest for Posture Monitoring and System Usability Verification Based on the Technology Acceptance Model

Body posture and activity are important indices for assessing health and quality of life, especially for elderly people. Therefore, an easily wearable device or instrumented garment would be valuable for monitoring elderly people's postures and activities to facilitate healthy aging. In particular, such devices should be accepted by elderly people so that they are willing to wear it all the time. This paper presents the design and development of a novel, textile-based, intelligent wearable vest for real-time posture monitoring and emergency warnings. The vest provides a highly portable and low-cost solution that can be used both indoors and outdoors in order to provide long-term care at home, including health promotion, healthy aging assessments, and health abnormality alerts. The usability of the system was verified using a technology acceptance model-based study of 50 elderly people. The results indicated that although elderly people are anxious about some newly developed wearable technologies, they look forward to wearing this instrumented posture-monitoring vest in the future.

Features and application of wearable biosensors in medical care

One of the new technologies in the field of health is wearable biosensor, which provides vital signs monitoring of patients, athletes, premature infants, children, psychiatric patients, people who need long-term care, elderly, and people in impassable regions far from health and medical services. The aim of this study was to explain features and applications of wearable biosensors in medical services. This was a narrative review study that done in 2015. Search conducted with the help of libraries, books, conference proceedings, through databases of Science Direct, PubMed, Proquest, Springer, and SID (Scientific Information Database). In our searches, we employed the following keywords and their combinations; vital sign monitoring, medical smart shirt, smart clothing, wearable biosensors, physiological monitoring system, remote detection systems, remote control health, and bio-monitoring system. The preliminary search resulted in 54 articles, which published between 2002 and 2015. After a careful analysis of the content of each paper, 41 sources selected based on their relevancy. Although the use of wearable in healthcare is still in an infant stage, it could have a magic effect on healthcare. Smart wearable in the technology industry for 2015 is one that is looking to be a big and profitable market. Wearable biosensors capable of continuous vital signs monitoring and feedback to the user will be significantly effective in timely prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and control of diseases.

Wireless remote monitoring of glucose using a functionalized ZnO nanowire arrays based sensor

This paper presents a prototype wireless remote glucose monitoring system interfaced with a ZnO nanowire arrays-based glucose sensor, glucose oxidase enzyme immobilized onto ZnO nanowires in conjunction with a Nafion^® membrane coating, which can be effectively applied for the monitoring of glucose levels in diabetics. Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) services like General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) and Short Message Service (SMS) have been proven to be logical and cost effective methods for gathering data from remote locations. A communication protocol that facilitates remote data collection using SMS has been utilized for monitoring a patient’s sugar levels. In this study, we demonstrate the remote monitoring of the glucose levels with existing GPRS/GSM network infra-structures using our proposed functionalized ZnO nanowire arrays sensors integrated with standard readily available mobile phones. The data can be used for centralized monitoring and other purposes. Such applications can reduce health care costs and allow caregivers to monitor and support to their patients remotely, especially those located in rural areas.

Wearable and implantable wireless sensor network solutions for healthcare monitoring

Wireless sensor network (WSN) technologies are considered one of the key research areas in computer science and the healthcare application industries for improving the quality of life. The purpose of this paper is to provide a snapshot of current developments and future direction of research on wearable and implantable body area network systems for continuous monitoring of patients. This paper explains the important role of body sensor networks in medicine to minimize the need for caregivers and help the chronically ill and elderly people live an independent life, besides providing people with quality care. The paper provides several examples of state of the art technology together with the design considerations like unobtrusiveness, scalability, energy efficiency, security and also provides a comprehensive analysis of the various benefits and drawbacks of these systems. Although offering significant benefits, the field of wearable and implantable body sensor networks still faces major challenges and open research problems which are investigated and covered, along with some proposed solutions, in this paper.

Smart Vest: Wearable multi-parameter remote physiological monitoring system

The wearable physiological monitoring system is a washable shirt, which uses an array of sensors connected to a central processing unit with firmware for continuously monitoring physiological signals. The data collected can be correlated to produce an overall picture of the wearer's health. In this paper, we discuss the wearable physiological monitoring system called 'Smart Vest'. The Smart Vest consists of a comfortable to wear vest with sensors integrated for monitoring physiological parameters, wearable data acquisition and processing hardware and remote monitoring station. The wearable data acquisition system is designed using microcontroller and interfaced with wireless communication and global positioning system (GPS) modules. The physiological signals monitored are electrocardiogram (ECG), photoplethysmogram (PPG), body temperature, blood pressure, galvanic skin response (GSR) and heart rate. The acquired physiological signals are sampled at 250samples/s, digitized at 12-bit resolution and transmitted wireless to a remote physiological monitoring station along with the geo-location of the wearer. The paper describes a prototype Smart Vest system used for remote monitoring of physiological parameters and the clinical validation of the data are also presented.