Benjamin Kuris

SHIMMER™ – A Wireless Sensor Platform for Noninvasive Biomedical Research

Applying new sensing technology to healthcare maybe part of a solution to the financial and demographic crisis facing global healthcare systems. Researchers applying new approaches to noninvasive patient monitoring and diagnostics are assisted by the features of Sensing Health with Intelligence, Modularity, Mobility and Experimental Reusability (SHIMMER™), a flexible sensing platform. Integrated peripherals, open software, modular expansion, specific power management hardware, and a library of applications supported with platform validation provide SHIMMER with advantages over many other medical research platforms.

Wearable wireless sensor network to assess clinical status in patients with neurological disorders

The goal of this project is to develop wireless sensors and analysis methods to monitor patients with various motor dysfunctions. We are currently targeting two specific applications: facilitating medication titration in patients with Parkinsons disease and assessing motor recovery in stroke survivors undergoing rehabilitation. In our vision, the treatment and rehabilitation hospital of the future will allow clinicians to continuously monitor motor activity in patients via miniature sensor technology in order to better design interventions on an individual basis. Two key points toward developing the tools necessary to achieve continuous monitoring of motor function are (1) development of a robust and deployable wearable wireless network of sensors and (2) the development of analysis techniques to derive clinically relevant information from miniature sensor data.

Event detection in an assisted living environment

This paper presents the design of a wireless event detection and in building location awareness system. The systems architecture is based on using a body worn sensor to detect events such as falls where they occur in an assisted living environment. This process involves developing event detection algorithms and transmitting such events wirelessly to an in house network based on the 802.15.4 protocol. The network would then generate alerts both in the assisted living facility and remotely to an offsite monitoring facility. The focus of this paper is on the design of the system architecture and the compliance challenges in applying this technology.