WIRELESS HEALTH

SYSTEMS
Need for wireless monitoring
• Wireless monitoring through wearable devices could be useful for
hospitalized patients, particularly those who are unstable or at higher
risk for serious complications such as critically ill patients.
• This review aims at summarizing current evidence regarding the use
of wireless monitoring in the ICU setting.
• Wireless sensor network (WSN) technologies have the potential to
change our lifestyle with different applications in fields such as
healthcare, entertainment, travel, retail, industry, dependent care and
emergency management, in addition to many other areas.
• The combination of wireless sensors and sensor networks with
computing and artificial intelligence research have built a cross-
disciplinary concept of ambient intelligence in order to overcome the
challenges we face in everyday life.
Definition of Body area network
• Body Area Network (BAN) technology uses small, low power wireless
devices that can be carried or embedded inside or on the body.
Applications include but are not limited to:
• Health and wellness monitoring
• Sports training (e.g., to measure performance)
• Personalized medicine (e.g., heart monitors)
• Personal safety (e.g., fall detection)
Body area network
• A number of wireless BAN communication technologies have been
implemented based on the existing radio technologies.
• However, if BAN technology is to achieve its full potential, it needs a
more specific and dedicated technology, which is optimized for BAN.
• For example, solutions for monitoring people during exercise one or
two hours a day, or a few days a week, may not be suitable for 24/7
monitoring as a part of the Internet of Things (IoT) concept.
BAN and Healthcare
• Body Area Network (BAN) is a technology that allows communication
between ultra-small and ultra low-power intelligent sensors/devices that are
located on the body surface or implanted inside the body.
• In addition, the wearable/implantable nodes can communicate to a
controller device that is located in the vicinity of the body.
• These radio-enabled sensors can be used to continuously gather a variety of
important health and/or physiological data.
• Radio enabled implantable medical devices offer a revolutionary set of
applications among which we can point to smart pills for precision drug
delivery, intelligent endoscope capsules, glucose monitors and eye pressure
sensing systems.
• Similarly, wearable sensors allow for various medical/physiological
monitoring (e.g. electrocardiogram, temperature, respiration, heart rate, and
blood pressure), disability assistance, human performance management, etc.
Characteristics
• Wearable devices that work outside the confines of the hospital without
expert medical assistance must fulfill a number of characteristics.
• Usability: The device has to be worn on a continuous basis and must therefore
be small and lightweight. The challenge is to compress the device size down.
• Power consumption: The device should have low power consumption,
reducing the need for frequent re-charging and disruptions in monitoring.
• Design: The device must be elegant without the need to attach long wires and
electrodes from the device to the patient and from the device to the mobile
gateway that transmits data (to the remote medical care unit).
• Cost: If a patient is required to purchase the unit, it should cost sub US$200 to
be affordable or for the hospital to give it away free as part of medical care.
• Devices that fulfill these conditions can expect to become popular.
• Manufacturers will find that users are able to easily integrate such
devices into their daily lives for maximum benefit.
• The typical set of parameters that the device must monitor include
heart activity, fetal heart rate, skin resistance, skin temperature,
refractive index of blood etc.
Components
• Based on what the device is required to measure and monitor, its
components would include:
• Bio sensors: Application specific bio sensors that emit signals indicating
measured parameters
• Analog-to-digital converters: Application specific analog front end to digitize
the sensor signals. The device may also be equipped with signal conditioning
circuitry.
• General purpose micro controller: To process signals for the device to
function. Signals could indicate battery levels, failure, etc. or signals received
from accelerometer, displays and switches, memory and connectivity
solutions.
Components
• Wireless interface: In most instances, the device will connect to a mobile
gateway over a Body Area Network (BAN) or the newer Bluetooth LE (low
energy) suitable for continuous transfer of medical data.
• Memory: In modern wearable devices, the data is sent in real-time to a
mobile gateway (smart phone or a tablet) and then to the patient’s remote
health care provider. These devices can also store data in off line mode,
synchronizing the data when the device goes online.
• Power management: The device design must ensure that energy consumption
is minimized for longer uninterrupted device deployment and stand by time
Technical Challenges
• Effectiveness of the WBAN is important from both patients and
healthcare perspective.
• As the time passes, challenges to the emerging technologies increases
along with the advancements.
• There is variety of challenges faced by WBAN as explain below.
• These challenges are classified in six major classes such as energy,
mobility, security and communications (i.e., networking, QoS and
cooperation).
Technical Challenges
• Energy Requirements: most of the devices in WBAN are using the wireless
medium, therefore they are portable. Such devices are small in size and
carry power source too. Hence, the power is always limited. Wireless
natures made them roam free, meaning the devices are free to move. The
power to the device of the network is provided with the help of batteries.
• WBAN Security: In any network, communication data is of worth
importance. In case of WBAN, it becomes more critical as it has been
connected to the Physical system. These communication channels are very
much visible to the attacker and if not securely implemented it could any
of the attack including eavesdropping on traffic between the nodes,
message injection, message replay, spoofing and off course compromise
the integrity of physical devices.
Technical Challenges
• Mobility Support: WBAN provides two major advantages, i.e.,
portable monitoring and location independence. Mobility can pose
serious problem in some application like E-Health care even posture
do effect the communication. The mobility is defined between the
user and the WBAN as a seamless link. One of the major issues is to
reach to sink, which may be single or multi hop.
• Quality of Service: Quality of Service (QoS) is the requirements
fulfilled by system as requested by the users. For more life critical
system, timeliness may be the parameter for the quality. System, that
cannot fulfill the said requirement, falls short of providing the QoS.
Technical Challenges
• Cooperation between Nodes: When the intermediate nodes help
source destination pair in communication, the cooperation occurs.
The intermediate nodes may refer as helper or relay as shown in Fig.
Cooperation offers a good solution for many of the limitations in
WBAN such as distance, mobility, coverage and channel impairments.