Development of in-home wireless continuous temperature data logging and alarming system for fever monitoring in pediatrics

Abstract

Fever is one of the most common concern to be taken care by parents that sometimes force them to bring their child to the hospital emergency for continuous follow up especially at night when sleeping. Fever is defined when a rectal temperature reaches over 38.0 C (100.4 F). Temperatures measured from other sites of body are usually less. There is no defined threshold for fever due to variation of body temperatures between different individuals as much as 1 F. Fever itself is not life threatening unless the rectal temperature is persistent over than 41.6 C (107 F). Fever may be due to a serious illness and usually is caused by common infections that are not serious. However, a fever can be caused by other causes other than infections. Since continuous temperature monitoring is inapplicable at the rectal site, the paper aims at developing a prototype system using Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) for wireless continuous fever monitoring system from the head skin or wrist that are the most applicable area even so one must add 2 degrees for the read temperature correction. The system can record the temperature at the patient terminal and transmit the fever status and critical situations to an alarming system in the side of taking-care people that will help in in-home care for pediatrics suffering from fever.