Ambient and wearable sensors for human health monitoring

Abstract

The world's population is aging, and with age comes the potential for an increase in chronic health conditions, a decrease in mobility and impaired senses. This population shift and the desire to provide quality care has resulted in an increasing interest in developing technology-based solutions for enabling and enhancing healthy independent living among older adults, while improving the effectiveness of disease-prevention strategies and access to health care. This interest is paired with the increased availability of new wearable and ambient technologies and an everimproving health information technology infrastructure. Advances in bioengineering and computing, coupled with demographic shifts, suggest a ripe opportunity for the design and development of appropriate ambient and mobile technologies that enable functional independence and improve quality of life for older adults. Home-health and mobile-health technologies are expected to function not only as monitoring devices, but as essential components in the delivery of health services.