Wearable and Portable Monitoring Devices for Older People
Currently, there is a growing number of older people worldwide. This demographic change results in serious social and economic problems. Therefore governments, especially in developed countries, attempt to intervene in this process and help to enhance qua
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Abstract. Currently, there is a growing number of older people worldwide. This demographic change results in serious social and economic problems. Therefore governments, especially in developed countries, attempt to intervene in this process and help to enhance quality of life of older population groups with different means. One of the approaches in this respect is the use of mobile and wireless technologies in healthcare. The purpose of this article is to discuss the use of wearable and portable monitoring devices for older people in three areas of healthcare: fall detection, dementia care and low access to healthcare. The findings revealed that there is a lack of clinical studies examining the use of wearable devices in healthcare for older people. Therefore more research should be performed because the benefits of the use of wearable devices, such as their unobtrusiveness, sensitivity, or reliability, can contribute to the enhancement of quality of life of older people. Keywords: Wearable and portable monitoring devices detection Dementia care Low-access Benefits
Older people
Fall
1 Introduction At present there is a steady increase of older population groups. In 2013 there were around 45 million people at the age of 65+ living worldwide. By 2020 this number of older people should reach 98 million [1]. In the developed countries of Europe, the proportion of older people at the age of 65+ is estimated to grow from 18.2% in 2013 to 28.1% in 2050 [2, 3]. These demographic changes obviously bring about serious problems such as important social and economic issues [4–6]. Thus, there is an attempt to increase quality of life of this older population groups in order to support them to stay independent as long as possible. This is also the goal of the world’s governments. They are working on the strategic plans which would meet this aim [7]. One of the approaches which the governments try to implement in this process of the improvement of quality of life of older people is the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) for the maintenance of their health problems. They have good prerequisites for it because the present generation of seniors is relatively digitally aware than they used to be ten years ago [8]. Furthermore, they are comfortable with the exploitation of the so-called eHealth technologies, i.e., mobile and wireless devices which can help them improve their health. Especially, wearable technology is © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2017 J.J. (Jong Hyuk) Park et al. (eds.), Advanced Multimedia and Ubiquitous Engineering, Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering 448, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-5041-1_72
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becoming increasingly popular nowadays. It includes electronics that can be worn on the body, either as an accessory or as part of material used in clothing. One of the major features of wearable technology is its ability to connect to the Internet, enabling data to be exchanged between a network and the device [9]. As Are
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