Title: Smart care spaces: pervasive sensing technologies for at-home care

Authors: A.M. Thomas; P. Moore; C. Evans; H. Shah; M. Sharma; S. Mount; F. Xhafa; H.V. Pham; L. Barolli; A. Patel; A.J. Wilcox; C. Chapman; P. Chima

Addresses: Faculty of Technology, Engineering and the Environment, Birmingham City University, 1 Curzon Street, Birmingham B4 7XG, UK ' Faculty of Technology, Engineering and the Environment, Birmingham City University, 1 Curzon Street, Birmingham B4 7XG, UK ' Faculty of Technology, Engineering and the Environment, Birmingham City University, 1 Curzon Street, Birmingham B4 7XG, UK ' Faculty of Technology, Engineering and the Environment, Birmingham City University, 1 Curzon Street, Birmingham B4 7XG, UK ' Faculty of Technology, Engineering and the Environment, Birmingham City University, 1 Curzon Street, Birmingham B4 7XG, UK ' Faculty of Science and Engineering, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Wolverhampton, Wulfruna Street, Wolverhampton WV1 1SB, UK ' Department of Software, Technical University of Catalonia, C. Jordi Girona, 1-3, 08034, Barcelona, Spain ' Soft Intelligence Laboratory, Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Ritsumeikan University, 1-1-1 Noji-higashi, Kusatsu, Shiga 525-8577, Japan ' Faculty of Information Engineering, Department of Information and Communication Engineering, Fukuoka Institute of Technology, 3-30-1 Wajiro-higashi, Higashi-ku, Fukuoka 811-0295, Japan ' Faculty of Technology, Engineering and the Environment, Birmingham City University, 1 Curzon Street, Birmingham B4 7XG, UK ' Faculty of Technology, Engineering and the Environment, Birmingham City University, 1 Curzon Street, Birmingham B4 7XG, UK ' Faculty of Technology, Engineering and the Environment, Birmingham City University, 1 Curzon Street, Birmingham B4 7XG, UK ' Faculty of Technology, Engineering and the Environment, Birmingham City University, 1 Curzon Street, Birmingham B4 7XG, UK

Abstract: Society is experiencing an ageing demographic, coupled with increasingly prevalent Alzheimer and Dementia conditions, expected to cause explosive increases in healthcare costs. There is a need to develop pervasive technologies that allow monitoring of patients at home, where medically permissible, to reduce pressures on formal healthcare spaces. Those 'smart care spaces' require use of sensors and intelligent computer systems to support the needs of the cared-for, carers and medical personnel. In so doing they can ensure quality-of-life through comfort and adequate medical-monitoring, as well as providing significant data for ongoing medical evaluation and diagnosis. This requires two main elements of sensing: sensors to monitor the care environment and patient-mounted sensors to monitor physiological parameters. Therefore, this paper considers technological options available for such monitoring and provides examples of their use. It will be concluded that cost-effective solutions are available for development of smart care space monitoring.

Keywords: smart care spaces; e-health; electronic healthcare; aging; dementia; home care; ad hoc computing; ubiquitous computing; intelligent computing; pervasive sensing; quality of life; comfort; medical monitoring; medical evaluation; medical diagnosis; patient sensors; physiological parameters; patient monitoring.

DOI: 10.1504/IJAHUC.2014.064862

International Journal of Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing, 2014 Vol.16 No.4, pp.268 - 282

Received: 04 Oct 2012
Accepted: 13 Jun 2013
Published online: 19 Sep 2014 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article