Abstract
With the advances in sensor technology, big data, and artificial intelligence, unobtrusive in-home health monitoring has been a research focus for decades. Following up our research on smart vehicles, within the framework of unobtrusive health monitoring in private spaces, this work attempts to provide a guide to current sensor technology for unobtrusive in-home monitoring by a literature review of the state of the art and to answer, in particular, the questions: (1) What types of sensors can be used for unobtrusive in-home health data acquisition? (2) Where should the sensors be placed? (3) What data can be monitored in a smart home? (4) How can the obtained data support the monitoring functions? We conducted a retrospective literature review and summarized the state-of-the-art research on leveraging sensor technology for unobtrusive in-home health monitoring. For structured analysis, we developed a four-category terminology (location, unobtrusive sensor, data, and monitoring functions). We acquired 912 unique articles from four relevant databases (ACM Digital Lib, IEEE Xplore, PubMed, and Scopus) and screened them for relevance, resulting in papers analyzed in a structured manner using the terminology. The results delivered 25 types of sensors (motion sensor, contact sensor, pressure sensor, electrical current sensor, etc.) that can be deployed within rooms, static facilities, or electric appliances in an ambient way. While behavioral data (e.g., presence (), time spent on activities ()) can be acquired effortlessly, physiological parameters (e.g., heart rate, respiratory rate) are measurable on a limited scale (). Behavioral data contribute to functional monitoring. Emergency monitoring can be built up on behavioral and environmental data. Acquired physiological parameters allow reasonable monitoring of physiological functions to a limited extent. Environmental data and behavioral data also detect safety and security abnormalities. Social interaction monitoring relies mainly on direct monitoring of tools of communication (smartphone; computer). In summary, convincing proof of a clear effect of these monitoring functions on clinical outcome with a large sample size and long-term monitoring is still lacking.
Highlights
We extend this thematic series in the framework of unobtrusive health monitoring by focusing on the sensor-enhanced private spaces, namely, smart homes
The search string on the four databases resulted in 912 records after removing 163 duplicates, of which 133 papers remained after screening titles and abstracts (Figure 2)
In this work, we performed a search with a limited search space on four databases, namely, ACM Digital Lib, IEEE Xplore, PubMed, and Scopus, for acquiring the work in the field of in-home health monitoring published in the past decade
Summary
We defined unobtrusive health monitoring as ambient using sensor technology to collect human health-related data without introducing any inconveniences to everyday life [6]. Within the framework of unobtrusive health monitoring in private spaces, our previous work investigated the up-to-date research on leveraging sensor technology in smart vehicles [7]. A smart home can continuously or over shorter time intervals monitor its resident’s health status while the resident is doing daily activities, unaffected by the measurements. This monitoring may capture a comprehensive picture of a person’s health and functional status and critical changes or events [8]. The following questions will be answered: (1) What types of sensors can be used for unobtrusive in-home health data acquisition? (2) Where should the sensors be placed? (3) Which data can be monitored in the smart home? (4)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
