A ubiquitous telehealth system for the elderly

Abstract

Chronic diseases are becoming the world’s leading causes of death and disability, and are predicted to account for almost three quarters of all deaths by 2020. A working prototype was built to capture vital signs for the elderly staying at home and deliver prompt care remotely by using wearable ECG wireless sensors. This prototype has been tested to capture data on a 24/7 basis for a number of patients at the KFUPM Medical Center. The developed system includes a suit of signal processing algorithms for the detection of severe cases of arrhythmias in elderly patients. After identifying patients with potential arrhythmia variability, an alarm system sends emergency requests to caregivers for immediate response. Our results were benchmarked against the standard MIT physiobank. The performance of the system was also tested on simulated data with very satisfactory results, and very positive feedback from users and medical practitioners. Abstract. Chronic diseases are becoming the world’s leading causes of death and disability, and are predicted to account for almost three quarters of all deaths by 2020. A working prototype was built to capture vital signs for the elderly staying at home and deliver prompt care remotely by using wearable ECG wireless sensors. This prototype has been tested to capture data on a 24/7 basis for a number of patients at the KFUPM Medical Center. The developed system includes a suit of signal processing algorithms for the detection of severe cases of arrhythmias in elderly patients. After identifying patients with potential arrhythmia variability, an alarm system sends emergency requests to caregivers for immediate response. Our results were benchmarked against the standard MIT physiobank. The performance of the system was also tested on simulated data with very satisfactory results, and very positive feedback from users and medical practitioners.