Pervasive Homecare Monitoring Technologies and Applications

Research studies and population statistics records indicate that elderly population increases in the developed countries whilst forecasts reveal that 65 and over age group will be nearly 20% of the overall population. One of the major challenges related to this observation is the delivery of homecare and the reduction of healthcare cost without compromising the quality of services provided. Pervasive homecare systems provide information and mechanisms to alert when pathological situations are identified. The implementation of technological solutions for homecare applications minimizes the time to provide help in abnormal situations and improve quality of life in elderly and chronically ills. Pervasive homecare networks provide continuous medical monitoring, control of home appliances, medical data storage and processing and emergency situations awareness. Constant monitoring provides early detection of emergency conditions and assists in optimum scheduling of a wide range of healthcare services for people with various degrees of cognitive and physical disabilities. Researchers continuously explore technological solutions in order to provide homecare and healthcare services for the elderly, chronically ill and children. The amount of proposals reveal a rapidly growing scientific area of high impact on sensitive groups that significantly improve quality of life and prevent or deal with life threatening situations. However, the use of this wireless sensor technology in medical practice not only allows a supreme level of complexity in patient monitoring with regards to existing parameters (such as vital signs), but also offers the prospect of identifying new ways of diagnosing and preventing disease. Although wired communication technologies, such us ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) and optical communication, are widely used, the key aspects for pervasive healthcare communication is the transfer of high-speed and ubiquitous health data in every place in earth securely and promptly. Wireless technology came to encompass the e-health monitoring everywhere from any given location, providing the so-called m-health services. Research and development advances in the e-health community include data gathering and transfer of vital information, integration of human machine interface technology into handheld devices, data interoperability and integration with hospital legacy systems and electronic patient records.