Survey of Sensor-Based Personal Wellness Management Systems

Abstract

The cost of healthcare is expected to grow enormously in the coming years. To keep these costs limited, we need better technological tools for self-monitoring and independent aging and to put a stronger emphasis on wellness, defined as a balanced and healthy lifestyle that avoids diseases at every stage of life. In contrast to traditional medical science that examines patients in laboratories, wellness has so far been difficult to measure objectively. This situation is changing due to the availability of wearable and pervasive sensors, smartphones, and other body-worn devices that can track and infer users’ activities. Technological advances in this area are rapidly pushing forward. The range of methods as well as the health domains where sensors have been used for monitoring is proliferating. This has created a unique opportunity to understand wellness in an integrative and balanced framework. The goal of this survey is to summarize the latest innovations in sensor technology and present the state-of-the-art of personal wellness management systems with the purpose of shedding light on where this field is developing and where the future research opportunities lie.