Home care technologies for ambient assisted living

Abstract

Health technology and increased medical knowledge enable accurate diagnostics and effective treatment of a large number of diseases, including those which only a decade ago were not easy to manage and cure. The interest and biomedical research in the modern society is intensively directed on disease prevention, early diagnostic and life quality improvement as well as on development of personalized healthcare especially for those chronically ill, disabled and for the aging population. The aim of the new approach in healthcare is not only to monitor and improve health of individuals, but also to increase their independence, mobility, safety and social contact through increased communication, inclusion and participation using available technologies. A large number of new medical devices for health monitoring, home care, wellness promotion, gerontotechnology, etc. have to be designed, tested and adopted to meet the special needs and demands of different population groups. These new devices for telemonitoring and telediagnostics create large amount of health related information, in most cases from sensors organized into body sensor networks. The information has to be processed, transmitted from the point of care to the healthcare system in a safe way and after managing the information in an appropriate and intelligent manner, decisions related to the persons health are to be made. This paper brings an overview of some solutions presented in literature as well as our own development of intelligent mobile monitoring devices.