Anders E. Liverud

ESUMS: A mobile system for continuous home monitoring of rehabilitation patients

The pressure on the healthcare services is building up for several reasons. The ageing population trend, the increase in life-style related disease prevalence, as well as the increased treatment capabilities with associated general expectation all add pressure. The use of ambient healthcare technologies can alleviate the situation by enabling time and cost-efficient monitoring and follow-up of patients discharged from hospital care. We report on an ambulatory system developed for monitoring of physical rehabilitation patients. The system consists of a wearable multisensor monitoring device; a mobile phone with client application aggregating the data collected; a service-oriented-architecture based server solution; and a PC application facilitating patient follow-up by their health professional carers. The system has been tested and verified for accuracy in controlled environment trials on healthy volunteers, and also been usability tested by 5 congestive heart failure patients and their nurses. This investigation indicated that patients were able to use the system, and that nurses got an improved basis for patient follow-up.

Development of a wearable multisensor device enabling continuous monitoring of vital signs and activity

This paper reports on the development and testing of a wearable device intended as a component in an ambulatory system for health monitoring of physical rehabilitation patients. The device measures heart rate, skin temperature, activity level and posture on the users chest. The wearable device has been run through a set of verification tests and the accuracy has been validated in controlled environment on 12 healthy volunteers. A long term user pilot with 5 congestive heart failure patients and their nurses was performed to test the whole system. The conclusion from the performed tests is that the developed wearable multisensor monitoring device is reliable, accurate, easy to use and fit for the purpose.

An Unobtrusive Wearable Device for Ambulatory Monitoring of Pulse Transit Time to Estimate Central Blood Pressure

There is a clinical need for improved ambulatory, frequent and unobtrusive monitoring of blood pressure and cardiac parameters like systolic time intervals. Truly unobtrusive wearable devices combining impedance cardiography with other sensors may be one possible solution. The IsenseU-BP+ device presented in this article measures single channel ECG, impedance cardiography and photo plethysmography at the chest. The device also measures activity and posture, as well as skin temperature. In this study, we report on the possibility to use these signals to measure pulse transit time for estimating blood pressure changes. Six subjects has been tested. Four of them showed good correlation between PTT and mean arterial pressure while two of the subjects had too low signal to noise ratio in the photoplethysmography signal for good estimation of PTT. Thus these results show that the quality of the raw data is promising for calculating a pulse transit time that shows good coherence with mean arterial pressure.

Protective jacket enabling decision support for workers in cold climate

The cold and harsh climate in the High North represents a threat to safety and work performance. The aim of this study was to show that sensors integrated in clothing can provide information that can improve decision support for workers in cold climate without disturbing the user. Here, a wireless demonstrator consisting of a working jacket with integrated temperature, humidity and activity sensors has been developed. Preliminary results indicate that the demonstrator can provide easy accessible information about the thermal conditions at the site of the worker and local cooling effects of extremities. The demonstrator has the ability to distinguish between activity and rest, and enables implementation of more sophisticated sensor fusion algorithms to assess work load and pre-defined activities. This information can be used in an enhanced safety perspective as an improved tool to advice outdoor work control for workers in cold climate.

Process architecture enabling object orientation and dynamic configuration for small embedded devices. Dynamic control of processes and communication channels

Embedded systems pose challenges such as limited memory and power budget. The list of mandatory functionality like connectivity, availability and remote configuration increase the software complexity and requires a more dynamic behaviour. This paper shows how to introduce object orientation to achieve dynamic configuration of processes and communication channels, better usage of RAM and more portable source code. This is implemented by a limited use of C++ without libraries in coexistence with existing C code.

Design and evaluation of an electronic triage system for prehospital monitoring of patients

Prehospital emergency triage involves prioritising patients and deciding who are in the most urgent need of treatment and medical intervention. Currently used triage methods do not support simple sharing of patient-related information, making it challenging for emergency personnel to monitor the number, location and medical status of patients involved in an incident. We present the design and evaluation of an electronic system that facilitates patient tracking and monitoring of vital parameters from the incident scene to place of treatment. The system comprises a patient electronic triage bracelet, which communicates with software applications for patient monitoring. We tested the system in two situations: real-life, daily operations involving real patients over 1 month and in a 1-day, large-scale, mass casualty exercise. Results are presented, along with lessons learned and suggestions for future research.

Portable qEEG and HD-tCS device for point-of-injury Traumatic Brain Injury diagnostics

Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (mTBI) can cause prolonged or permanent injuries if left undetected and ignored. It is therefore of great interest to lower the threshold for diagnosis of individuals with mTBI injury. We report on the development of a prototype of a portable quantified EEG (qEEG) system intended for in-the-field mTBI diagnostics. The 32-electrode system is fully battery driven, is interfaced with a control unit being part of a telemedicine care system. Electrode montage is a central problem effectively challenging measurements outside clinical environments. The system concept is unique in the sense that it will allow an automated montage process employing a flexible, disposable, one-size-fits-all electrode cap. All electrodes are individually configurable so that they can be used for both wet and dry qEEG electrodes. All electrodes can also be individually configured to allow Trans-Cranial Current Stimulation (tCS) sessions in DC, AC or other current supply modalities. The system has been functionality tested in end-to-end configurations where all control and measurement signals are forwarded between the head device on one side and the user interface and telemedicine system on the other. Tests confirm that the device can acquire and forward EEG data from 32 channels in parallel at target sensitivities up to 1 kHZ sampling frequencies. Additional device clinical evaluation is planned.

A User Study: Keyboard and Applications to Simplify Smartphone Adoption for Seniors.

The aim of the user study was to evaluate how the developed assistive physical keyboard, the Ezi-PAD, and integrated senior friendly applications, can encourage non-smartphone seniors to start using the smartphone and enable senior smartphone users to continue using a smartphone in spite of increasing motoric or visual impairment. A number of seniors with different experience and impairment, aged 64 to 86, were equipped with a smartphone and an Ezi-PAD assembly. After basic training, their use of the smartphone was monitored for up to 2 months. Five out of nine participants used the system for 2 months, and found the Ezi-PAD easy to use. The senior friendly applications gave extra utilitarian value to the phone.