Field Application of sensors. Before delving into technology solutions, it is worth a discussion on what type of information needs to be sensed. For this it is worth considering the situation at the beginning of 2013 in the three market areas that define AAL – telehealth, smart homes and telecare. Telehealth focuses on gathering biometric information through specialised peripherals. Typically these are medically approved under directive 93/42/EEC and/or FDA approval and will work in a system to capture a reading, send the results, store the results and represent the results over time. Sensors are customised based on the health condition being monitored, but can include a blood pressure cuff, a glucometer, thermometer, weight scale, spirometer, pluseoximeter, peakflow monitor/spirometer, ECG and coagulation meter. Other solutions are not medically approved and are considered at this point to be “wellness” or “lifestyle” management and not meet the definition for telehealth. Beyond the quantitative measures of health parameters, telehealth hubs typically include a screen with the ability to ask questions to the user to capture qualitative feedback about their state of mind and general feelings. The newest telehealth hubs allow dynamic customisation of the questionnaires to allow more detailed questions to be added or deleted based on the user’s condition. While wellness and lifestyle products are not clinically approved, they do suggest the direction that sensing will develop. Non-clinical sensors for pulse rate, pedometers and respiration are increasingly common in use with smart phone applications where data is captured and represented similar to telehealth solutions, but with the end user as the target user of the data instead of a medical practitioner. The United States Department of Defence has used their DefenceAdvanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) to investigate patches to monitor xxxxx xxxxx as well as higher-level functions like stress or energy use (Xxxxxxxx X.X. xx al., 2001). In the future sensors are likely to be ingested or warn on the skin for extended periods to supply clinical monitoring of specific conditions like the amount of chemicals in the blood stream. Information about real time or near real time chemical concentrations in the blood could work with similarly ingested medication release systems to adjust dosages based on the person’s chemistry. Smart Homes are more traditional in sensing the physical state of an enclosed area. Traditionally monitor for movement...
