Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

A Review of Approaches to Mobility Telemonitoring of the Elderly in Their Living Environment

  • Published:
Annals of Biomedical Engineering Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Rapid technological advances have prompted the development of a wide range of telemonitoring systems to enable the prevention, early diagnosis and management, of chronic conditions. Remote monitoring can reduce the amount of recurring admissions to hospital, facilitate more efficient clinical visits with objective results, and may reduce the length of a hospital stay for individuals who are living at home. Telemonitoring can also be applied on a long-term basis to elderly persons to detect gradual deterioration in their health status, which may imply a reduction in their ability to live independently. Mobility is a good indicator of health status and thus by monitoring mobility, clinicians may assess the health status of elderly persons. This article reviews the architecture of health smart home, wearable, and combination systems for the remote monitoring of the mobility of elderly persons as a mechanism of assessing the health status of elderly persons while in their own living environment.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

FIGURE 1.
FIGURE 2.
FIGURE 3.
FIGURE 4.
FIGURE 5.
FIGURE 6.
FIGURE 7.
FIGURE 8.
FIGURE 9.
FIGURE 10.
FIGURE 11.

Similar content being viewed by others

Abbreviations

ANN:

Artificial Neural Network

BP:

Blood Pressure

BUS:

Binary Unit System

CAN:

Controller Area Network

ECG:

Electrocardiogram

GPRS:

General Packet Radio Service

GSM:

Global System for Mobile communications

IR:

Infrared

PIR:

Passive InfraRed

ISDN:

Integrated Services Digital Network

LAN:

Local Area Network

PDA:

Personal Digital Assistant

POTS:

Plain Old Telephone System

PSTN:

Public Switched Telephone Network

RF:

Radio Frequency

SMS:

Short Message Service

WLAN:

Wireless Local Area Network

WPAN:

Wireless Personal Area Network

REFERENCES

  1. Asada, H. H., P. Shaltis, A. Reisner, S. Rhee, and R. C. Hutchinson. Mobile monitoring with wearable photoplethysmographic biosensors. IEEE Eng. Med. Biol. Mag. 22:28–40, 2003.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. BodyMedia SenseWear Armband, BodyMedia Inc., Pittsburg, USA. www.bodymedia.com (Accessed: 12 April 2005).

  3. Cameron, K., K. Hughes, and K. Doughty. Reducing fall incidence in community elders by telecare using predictive systems. In: 19th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, vol. 3, pp. 1036–1039, 1997.

  4. Celler, B. G., T. Hesketh, W. Earnshaw, and E. Ilsar. An instrumentation system for the remote monitoring of changes in functional health status of the elderly at home. In: Proceedings of the 16th Annual International Conference of the IEEE EMBS, vol. 2, pp. 908–909, 1994.

  5. Celler, B. G., N. H. Lovell, J. Basilakis, F. Magrabi, and M. Mathie. Home telecare for chronic disease management. In: Proceedings of the 23rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, vol. 4, pp. 3586–3589, 2001.

  6. Chan, M., E. Campo, and D. Esteve. Assessment of elderly mobility using a remote multisensor monitoring system. Stud. Health Technol. Inform. 90:72–77, 2002.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Chan, M. H. C., P. Ringeard, and E. Campo. Smart house automation system for the elderly and the disabled. IEEE Int. Conf. Syst. Man Cybern. 2:1586–1589, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Clark, A. K. EMMA: A comprehensive alarm system for the elderly and infirm and disabled who live at home. Res. Soc. Health Care 15:205–27, 1979.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Institute of Medicine, Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century, 2001.

  10. Coyle, M. Ambulatory cardiopulmonary data capture. 2nd Annual International IEEE-EMB Special Topic Conference on Microtechnologies in Medicine & Biology, pp. 297–300, 2002.

  11. Culhane, K. L., G. M. Lyons, D. Hilton, P. A. Grace, and D. Lyons. Long-term mobility monitoring of the elderly using accelerometers in a clinical environment. Clin. Rehabil. 18:335–343, 2004.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Dadd, M., B. Doyle, L. Wilson, and M. Gunaratnam. Lessons learned from the hospital without walls project. J. Telemed. Telecare 8:11–14, 2002.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Demongeot, J., G. Virone, F. Duchene, G. Benchetrit, T. Herve, N. Noury, and V. Rialle. Multi-sensors acquisition, data fusion, knowledge mining and alarm triggering in health smart homes for elderly people. C. R. Biologies 325:673–682, 2002.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  14. Doughty, K. and K. Cameron. Continuous assessment of the risk of falling using telecare. J. Telemed. Telecare 4:88–90, 1998.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  15. Doughty, K., K. Cameron, and P. Garner. Three generations of telecare of the elderly. J. Telemed. Telecare 2:71–80, 1996.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Doughty, K. and J. Costa. Continuous automated telecare assessment of the elderly. J. Telemed. Telecare 3:23–25, 1997.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  17. Ermisch, J., Fewer Babies, Longer Lives, New York: Joseph Rowntree Trust, 1990.

  18. IST Vivago WristCare,IST International Security Technoloy, Helsinki, Finland. http://www.istsec.fi/main.php?m=&did=93 (Accessed: 12 April 2005).

  19. Korhonen, I., J. Parkka, and M. Van Gils. Health monitoring in the home of the future. IEEE EMB 22:66–73, 2003.

    Google Scholar 

  20. Lyons, G. M., K. M. Culhane, D. Hilton, P. A. Grace, and D. Lyons. A description of an accelerometer-based mobility monitoring technique. Med. Eng. Phys., 27:497–504, 2005.

    Google Scholar 

  21. Maki, H., Y. Yonezawa, H. Ogawa, I. Ninomiya, K. Sada, and S. Hamada. A microcomputer-based life-safety monitoring system for elderly people. In: Proceedings of the 23rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE EMBS, vol. 4, pp. 3970–3972, 2001.

  22. Mathie, M., A. C. F. Coester, N. H. Lovell, B. G. Celler, S. R. Lord, and A. Tiedemann. A pilot study of long-term monitoring of human movements in the home using accelerometry. J. Telemed. Telecare 144–151, 2004.

  23. Mathie, M., N. H. Lovell, A. C. F. Coester, and B. G. Celler. Determining activity using a triaxial accelerometer. In: Proceedings of the Second Joint EMBS/BMES Conference, 2002.

  24. Mathie, M. J., A. C. F. Coster, N. H. Lovell, and B. G. Celler. Accelerometry: Providing an integrated, practical method for long-term, ambulatory monitoring of human movement. Physiol. Meas. 25:1–20, 2004.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Mathie, M. J. B. J. and B. G. Celler. A system for monitoring posture and physical activity using accelerometers. In: Proceedings of the 23rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, vol. 4, pp. 3654–3657, 2001.

  26. McLuckie, I. Advanced communication for sheltered housing. Electron. Power 374–378, 1984.

  27. Mozer, M. C. The neural network house: An environment that adapts to its inhabitants. In: Proceedings of the AAAI Spring Symposium on Intelligent Environments, 1998.

  28. Najafi, B., K. Aminian, A. Paraschiv-Ionescu, F. Loew, C. J. Bula, and P. Robert. Ambulatory system for human motion analysis using a kinematic sensor: Monitoring of daily physical activity in the elderly. IEEE Trans. Biomed. Eng. 50:711–723, 2003.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  29. National Council on Ageing and Older People & The Western Health Board & The Eastern Regional Health Authority. Health and Social Services for Older People, 2000.

  30. Ní Scanaill, C., G. M. Lyons, A. Bourke, M. Keller, M. Schneiders, K. L. Culhane, and B. Aherne. Use of accelerometry for the long-term mobility monitoring of the elderly. In: 7th European Conference for the Advancement of Assistive Technology in Europe, 2003.

  31. Noury, N., P. Barralon, P. Couturier, F. Favre-Reguillon, R. Guillemaud, C. Mestais, Y. Caritu, D. David, S. Moine, A. Franco, F. Guiraud-By, M. Berenguer, and H. Provost. ACTIDOM—A MicroSystem based on MEMS for activity monitoring of the frail elderly in their Daily Life. In: 26th IEEE-EMBS, pp. 3305–3308, 2004.

  32. Noury, N., A. Dittmar, C. Corroy, R. Baghai, J. L. Weber, D. Blanc, F. Klefstat, A. Blinovska, S. Vaysse, and B. Comet. VTAMN—A smart clothe for ambulatory remote monitoring of physiological parameters and activity. In: 26th Annual International Conference of the EMBC 2:3266–3269, 2004.

  33. Noury, N., T. Herve, V. Rialle, G. Virone, E. Mercier, G. Morey, A. Moro, and T. Porcheron. Monitoring behavior in home using a smart fall sensor and position sensors. In: 1st Annual International Conference on Microtechnologies in Medicine and Biology, pp. 607–610, 2000.

  34. Noury, N., G. Virone, P. Barralon, J. Ye, V. Rialle, and J. Demongeot. New trends in health smart homes. In: Proceedings of the 5th International Workshop on Enterprise Networking and Computing in Healthcare Industry. Healthcom, pp. 118–127, 2003.

  35. Noury, N., G. Virone, and T. Creuzet. The health integrated smart home information system (HIS2): Rules based system for the localization of a human. In: 2nd Annual International IEEE-EMB Special Topic Conference on Microtechnologies in Medicine & Biology, pp. 318–321, 2002.

  36. Physical Activity and Health: A Report of the Surgeon General, Washington D.C., U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, 1996.

  37. Orr, R. J. and G. D. Abowd. The smart floor: A mechanism for natural user identification and tracking. In: Proceedings of Human Factors in Computer Systems, 2000.

  38. Park, S. and S. Jayaraman. Enhancing the quality of life through wearable technology. IEEE Eng. Med. Biol. Mag. 22:41–48, 2003.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  39. Peeters, P. H. Design criteria for an automatic safety-alarm system for elderly. Technol. Health Care (Official Journal Of The European Society For Engineering And Medicine) 8:81–91, 2000.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  40. Perry, M., A. Dowdall, L. Lines, and K. Hone. Multimodal and ubiquitous computing systems: Supporting independent-living older users. Inf. Technol. Biomed. IEEE Trans. 8:258–270, 2004.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  41. Personal Information Monitor—PERSiMON, CSIRO ICT Centre, Australia. http://www.ict.csiro.au/Persimon/index.htm (Accessed: 12 April 2005).

  42. Porteus, J. and S. Brownsell. Using Telecare: Exploring technologies for independent living for older people, Oxford: Anchor Trust, 2000.

  43. Prado, M., J. Reina-Tosina, and L. Roa. Distributed intelligent architecture for falling detection and physical activity analysis in the elderly. In: Proceeding of the Second Joint EMBS/BMES Conference, vol. 3, pp. 1910–1911, 2002.

  44. Reina-Tosina, J., G. Sanchez, L. Roa, and M. Prado. Cost-effective deployment of communication resources for a home health telecare system for the elderly. In: Proceedings of the 25th Annual International Conference of the IEEE EMBS, vol. 2, pp. 1372–1375, 2003.

  45. Sabatini, A. M., V. Genovese, and E. S. Maini. Portable system for data acquisition and transmission based on handheld PC technology. Electron. Lett. 38:1635–7, 2002.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  46. Sarela, A., I. Korhonen, J. Lotjonen, M. Sola, and M. Myllymaki. IST Vivago—an intelligent social and remote wellness monitoring system for the elderly. In: 4th International IEEE EMBS Special Topic Conference on Information Technology Applications in Biomedicine, pp. 362–365, 2003.

  47. Sixsmith, A. J. An evaluation of an intelligent home monitoring system J. Telemed. Telecare 6:63–72, 2000.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  48. Stanford, V. Using pervasive computing to deliver elder care. IEEE Pervasive Comput. 1:10–13, 2002.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  49. Office of Helth Economics. The Economics of Health Care, http://www.oheschools.org/ohech6pg1.html (Accessed: 12 April 2005).

  50. Tunstall Group Ltd, Yorkshire, United Kingdom. http://www.tunstall.co.uk/home.asp (Accessed: 12 April 2005).

  51. Highway to Health: Transforming US Health Care in the Information Age, 1996.

  52. Van der Wilt, G. J., R. Reuzel, and H. D. Banta. The ethics of assessing health technologies. Theor. Med. Bioethics 21:103–115, 2000.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  53. Veltink, P. H., H. B. J. Bussmann, W. de Vries, W. L. J. Martens, and R. C. Van Lummel. Detection of static and dynamic activities using uniaxial accelerometers. IEEE Trans. Rehabil. Eng. 4:375–385, 1996.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  54. Virone, G., D. Istrate, M. Vacher, N. Noury, J. F. Serigna, and J. Demongeot. First steps in data fusion between a multichannel audio acquisition and an information system for home healthcare. In: Proceedings of the 25th Annual International Conference of the IEEE EMBS, vol. 2, pp. 1364–1367, 2003.

  55. Virone, G., B. Lefebvre, N. Noury, and J. Demongeot. Modeling and computer simulation of physiological rhythms and behaviours at home for data fusion programs in a telecare system. In: Proceedings of 5th International Workshop on Enterprise Networking and Computing in Healthcare Industry, pp. 111–117, 2003.

  56. Virone, G., N. Noury, and J. Demongeot. A system for automatic measurement of circadian activity deviations in telemedicine. IEEE Trans. Biomed. Eng. 49:1463–1469, 2002.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  57. VivoMetrics Lifeshirt, VivoMetrics Inc., California, USA. www.vivometrics.com (Accessed: 12 April 2005).

  58. Williams, G., K. Doughty, and D. A. Bradley. Safety and risk issues in using telecare. J. Telemed. Telecare 6:249–262, 2000.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  59. Wilson, L. S., R. W. Gill, I. F. Sharp, J. Joseph, S. A. Heitmann, C. F. Chen, M. J. Dadd, A. Kajan, A. F. Collings, and M. Gunaratnam. Building the hospital without walls-a CSIRO home telecare initiative. Telemed. J. 6:275–81, 2000.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors would like to acknowledge the funding from the Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering and Technology under the Embark Initiative.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Biomedical Electronics Laboratory, Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, University of Limerick, National Technological Park, Limerick, Ireland

    Cliodhna Ní Scanaill & Gerard M. Lyons

  2. Clinical Age Assessment Unit, Mid Western Regional Hospital, Limerick, Ireland

    Sheila Carew & Declan Lyons

  3. Laboratoire TIMC-IMAG, Faculté de Médecine, 38706, La Tronche Cedex, France

    Pierre Barralon & Norbert Noury

Authors
  1. Cliodhna Ní Scanaill
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Sheila Carew
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Pierre Barralon
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Norbert Noury
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Declan Lyons
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Gerard M. Lyons
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Cliodhna Ní Scanaill.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Scanaill, C.N., Carew, S., Barralon, P. et al. A Review of Approaches to Mobility Telemonitoring of the Elderly in Their Living Environment. Ann Biomed Eng 34, 547–563 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10439-005-9068-2

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10439-005-9068-2

Keywords

Search

Navigation