Author(s):
Rodrigues, Daniel Fernando Mendes
Date: 2014
Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.6/6136
Origin: uBibliorum
Project/scholarship:
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/FCT/3599-PPCDT/PEst-OE%2FEEI%2FLA0008%2F2013/PT;
Subject(s): Ambient Assisted Living; Biofeedback Monitoring; Body Sensor Networks; Healthcare Application; M-Health; Mobile Computing; Mobile Wearable Sensors; Safety Analysis; Technology Acceptance; Domínio/Área Científica::Engenharia e Tecnologia::Engenharia Eletrotécnica, Eletrónica e Informática
Description
Elderly people need regular healthcare services and, several times, are dependent of physicians’ personal attendance. This dependence raises several issues to elders, such as, the need to travel and mobility support. Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) and Mobile Health (m-Health) services and applications offer good healthcare solutions that can be used both on indoor and in mobility environments. This dissertation presents an ambient assisted living (AAL) solution for mobile environments. It includes elderly biofeedback monitoring using body sensors for data collection offering support for remote monitoring. The used sensors are attached to the human body (such as the electrocardiogram, blood pressure, and temperature). They collect data providing comfort, mobility, and guaranteeing efficiency and data confidentiality. Periodic collection of patients’ data is important to gather more accurate measurements and to avoid common risky situations, like a physical fall may be considered something natural in life span and it is more dangerous for senior people. One fall can out a life in extreme cases or cause fractures, injuries, but when it is early detected through an accelerometer, for example, it can avoid a tragic outcome. The presented proposal monitors elderly people, storing collected data in a personal computer, tablet, or smartphone through Bluetooth. This application allows an analysis of possible health condition warnings based on the input of supporting charts, and real-time bio-signals monitoring and is able to warn users and the caretakers. These mobile devices are also used to collect data, which allow data storage and its possible consultation in the future. The proposed system is evaluated, demonstrated and validated through a prototype and it is ready for use. The watch Texas ez430-Chronos, which is capable to store information for later analysis and the sensors Shimmer who allow the creation of a personalized application that it is capable of measuring biosignals of the patient in real time is described throughout this dissertation.