Remote physiological monitoring
Remote monitoring of people is now a possibility due to remote wireless technology and miniaturization. Also the advent of smart fabrics in recent years has allowed people to stay attached to monitoring devices without the issues of discomfort, large bulky technology or skin break down associated with sticky patches.
The field of remote sensing a person's vital signs have come a long way in recent years. Polar Electro of Finland has, for the last 20 years, produced a conductive plastic strap that communicates to a watch using an oscillating magnetic field or recently a digital radio interface. Watches or "wrist tops" by Polar and Suunto among others have been getting more complex in recent years with training programs and weight loss calorie counters. Actigraph, an American company from Florida, has pioneered the use of solid state accelerometers to measure human movement. Remote sensing waist coats, which connect with a cable to a PDA measure heart rate, breathing rate, and movement.
Until recently there was no practical system that allowed a person to have a sensor that was comfortable, unobtrusive, cost effective and put multiple parameters together to enable automatic measuring of fitness, fatigue, distress and condition. Several systems have been developed in recent years that have made pioneering advances in terms of comfort, reliability, ease of use, and technical accuracy.
The BioHarness Zephyr Technology allows a remote operator to view vital signs and status such as if someone has fallen over. The Bluetooth radio built in allows the device to communicate with VHF radios for soldiers, police officers or firefighters, to mobile phones for local applications or allows internet connectivity for remote patient monitoring by doctors.
Respironics developed a system for vital sign data logging and released the system for commercial production in 2003. It consists of a set of miniature, wireless physiological sensors associated with a personal-worn radio-frequency receiver. As of 2009, it supports core body temperature, heart rate, respiration rate and skin temperature.
Equivital is a proprietary remote physiological monitoring system developed by Hidalgo Limited, a Cambridge, UK based biomedical company. It is an ambulatory, wearable, high performance physiological system providing continuous real time visibility of an individual’s vital signs over a personal Bluetooth network or via a field radio system. These include heart rate, 2-lead electrocardiogram (ECG), respiration rate and effort, skin temperature (multiple locations), core body temperature (ingestible capsule), body orientation, blood oxygen saturation, impact and fall detection. It is used widely by research institutes and universities studying human performance and sports science as well as having applications in military, CBRN, fire fighter, lone worker and telemedicine.
Other technologies that allow patients to be monitored include Bluetooth enabled blood pressure cuffs, bathroom scales and glucose meters.
See also
References
Papers
- Comparison of thoracic breathing sensor to a Spirometer [1]
- Understanding affective Interaction [2]
- Parsimonious Identification of Physiological Indices for Monitoring Cognitive Fatigue [3]
- McDonnell, L., Hume, P.A., Nolte, V. 2009. Reliability of the ShoePod foot pressure system and BioHarness heart rate and breathing rate system during water and land ergometer rowing. A technical report for Rowing New Zealand and Zephyr technology.