Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8S 4L8, Canada.
Department of Pediatrics, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8S 4L8, Canada.
Sensors (Basel). 2017 Jan 12;17(1):130. doi: 10.3390/s17010130.
Life expectancy in most countries has been increasing continually over the several few decades thanks to significant improvements in medicine, public health, as well as personal and environmental hygiene. However, increased life expectancy combined with falling birth rates are expected to engender a large aging demographic in the near future that would impose significant burdens on the socio-economic structure of these countries. Therefore, it is essential to develop cost-effective, easy-to-use systems for the sake of elderly healthcare and well-being. Remote health monitoring, based on non-invasive and wearable sensors, actuators and modern communication and information technologies offers an efficient and cost-effective solution that allows the elderly to continue to live in their comfortable home environment instead of expensive healthcare facilities. These systems will also allow healthcare personnel to monitor important physiological signs of their patients in real time, assess health conditions and provide feedback from distant facilities. In this paper, we have presented and compared several low-cost and non-invasive health and activity monitoring systems that were reported in recent years. A survey on textile-based sensors that can potentially be used in wearable systems is also presented. Finally, compatibility of several communication technologies as well as future perspectives and research challenges in remote monitoring systems will be discussed.
由于医学、公共卫生以及个人和环境卫生方面的显著进步，大多数国家的预期寿命在过去几十年中一直在持续增加。然而，预期寿命的增加与出生率的下降相结合，预计在不久的将来会形成一个庞大的老龄化人口，这将给这些国家的社会经济结构带来重大负担。因此，开发具有成本效益、易于使用的老年医疗保健和福祉系统至关重要。基于非侵入性和可穿戴传感器、执行器以及现代通信和信息技术的远程健康监测提供了一种高效且具有成本效益的解决方案，使老年人能够继续在舒适的家庭环境中生活，而不是昂贵的医疗保健设施。这些系统还将使医疗保健人员能够实时监测患者的重要生理迹象、评估健康状况并从远程设施提供反馈。在本文中，我们介绍并比较了近年来报道的几种低成本、非侵入性的健康和活动监测系统。还介绍了一种潜在可用于可穿戴系统的基于纺织传感器的调查。最后，讨论了几种通信技术的兼容性以及远程监测系统的未来展望和研究挑战。
