Abstract
Sarcopenia is a highly prevalent, age-related muscle disorder associated with adverse outcomes. It is very important from a medical point of view to periodically monitor patients at risk of developing sarcopenia in order to early detect its onset or progression through objective and specific indicators. Today, the emerging Internet of Things (IoT)-enabling technologies allow us to create innovative, wearable, and non-invasive systems that can offer useful clinical support in this area. This work is focused on the use of combined hardware and software technologies, enabling the IoT, in order to monitor people suffering from sarcopenia by offering a high value-added service in the field of the Ambient Assisted Living (AAL). In addition to the description of the proposed system architecture, a validation of the entire system is also included, from both a performance and a functional point of view. Test beds have been carried out by using the independent replications method, and all measurements related to the identified sarcopenia parameters are characterized by a 95% confidence interval with a 5% maximum relative error. The implementation of these technologies as a supporting clinical tool used in a specific setting could significantly impact the life and independence of the sarcopenic frail elderly population.
Highlights
Sarcopenia is a highly prevalent, age-related muscle disorder characterized by decreased muscle mass, decreased muscle strength and impaired physical performance
The overall system architecture is based on a RESTful approach in order to guarantee a strong decoupling among the following three subsystems: the embedded system, the mobile app, and the back-end application in the cloud
The challenge of creating a wearable device able to detect the three main parameters related to sarcopenia was addressed
Summary
Sarcopenia is a highly prevalent, age-related muscle disorder characterized by decreased muscle mass, decreased muscle strength and impaired physical performance. It is a process that starts with a slow rhythm at age 40–50 and grows after 60 years old. It causes muscle atrophy and compromises the quality of muscle tissue and it is responsible for symptoms such as a constant sense of weakness, poor balance, slow gait, and difficulty in performing basal activities of daily living (e.g., climbing stairs). Sarcopenia has been overlooked and undertreated in mainstream practice because it is not so easy and feasible over the time to measure its three fundamental components—(i) muscle mass, (ii) muscle strength, and (iii) physical performance, such as gait speed [7]. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) are considered to be gold standards for non-invasive
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