Ambulatory Monitoring An Important Contribution of Electrical and Computer Engineering to Health Care

Abstract

Monitoring of free ranging patients provide very valuable information to the health-care service providers and researchers. This is done mostly employing telemetry techniques that collects data from the patient side and links them to the observer side mostly via a wireless transmission system. The data is processed in real time and/or sored for processing at a later stage to retrieve the physical and physiological information about the status of the patient. Range limitations, congested channels and interferences, analysis of vast amount of data and interpretation of results while the patient is out-of-site have been major disadvantages of telemetry systems. Recent developments in wearable sensors, electronic components, microelectromechanical devices, data communication and compression techniques and powering micropower electronic devices enhanced the systems and opened new application areas such as e-health, telemedicine and elderly care. Advances in real-time data processing yield immediate information about the attitude and activity level of the patient that allows the health service providers to respond quickly.