Physiologic monitors

Smart device physiologic monitors The development of “wearable” physiologic monitors that can be attached a patient’s body or even integrated into their garments via creation of a personal or body area network with wireless transmission of physiologic monitoring data via Bluetooth or similar technology to a smart phone or other personal digital assistant (PDA) has the potential to revolutionize care for the aging population by allowing in home remote monitoring of real time data, with the possibility of adding algorithm based analysis and intervention. Advantages of such monitoring systems could: • Allow early detection of vital sign deterioration • Alert responders to critical situations • Enhance connectedness among patients and loved ones, providing reassurance to family and maintaining dignity and independence for patients • Identify correlations between health and lifestyle • Battlefield monitoring of soldiers • Improve sports related conditioning • Provide providers with transformative real time physiologic data • Expand health care access to rural areas and developing countries where cellular access is often the only communication method available

Two such devices currently being developed and tested include the lifeGuard wireless physiologic monitor and the HealthGear real time physiologic monitoring system.

The LifeGuard system is being developed by NASA to monitor the health of astronauts during space flights and extravehicular activities. Capabilities of the LifeGuard include: • Heart rate • Systolic and diastolic blood pressure • Activity, (3-axis acceleration) • ECG, (2 channels) • Temperature • Respiration rate • Pulse oximetry

The HealthGear system is being developed by Microsoft, it is designed to be integrated into clothing and not only collects real time data but also performs algorithmic interpretation of the data for detecting sleep apnea episodes. • Heart Rate • Respiration rate • Pulse oximetry • Plethysmographic signal • Modular format to allow addition of additional components

References 1. Emil Jovanov, Dejan Raskovic, John Price, John Chapman, Anthony Moore, Abhishek Krishnamurthy. Patient Monitoring Using Personal Area Networks of Wireless Intelligent Sensors. 2. Nuria Oliver & Fernando Flores-Mangas. HealthGear: A Real-time Wearable System forMonitoring and Analyzing Physiological . 3. Signals.http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/research/technology-onepagers/life-guard.html.

Submitted by Ken Ingram