A wireless body area network of intelligent motion sensors for computer assisted physical rehabilitation

Emil Jovanov, Aleksandar Milenkovic, Chris Otto and Piet C de Groen

Presenter : Hyotaek Shim

Telemedicine System
Wearable health monitoring systems integrated into a telemedicine system continuous monitoring as a part of a diagnostic procedure to support early detection of abnormal conditions and prevention of its serious consequences during supervised recovery from an acute event or surgical procedure

Holter monitors
Traditional personal medical monitoring systems only to collect data for off-line processing Wires may limit the patients activity and level of comfort negatively influence the measured results

Continuous monitoring
Important limitation for wider acceptance of the existing systems for continuous monitoring unwieldy wires between sensors and a processing unit lack of system integration of individual sensors interference on a wireless communication channel shared by multiple devices nonexistent support for massive data collection and knowledge discovery

Integrated research databases

Records from individual monitoring sessions are rarely integrated into research databases support for data mining and knowledge discovery relevant to specific conditions and patient categories

Wireless Body Area Network

preprocessing & synchronization

Data flow in an WBAN

Sensor level

Personal Server Level

Medical Service Level

Sensor Level (1/2)

ECG(electrocardiogram) sensor for monitoring heart activity EMB(electromyography) sensor for monitoring muscle activity EEG(electroencephalography) sensor for monitoring brain electrical activity A blood pressure sensor A tilt sensor for monitoring trunk position movement sensors used to estimate users activity A smart sock sensor or a sensor equipped shoe insole
to delineate phases of individual steps

Sensor Level (2/2)

Minimal weight Low-power operation to permit prolonged continuous monitoring Seamless integration into a WBAN standard-based interface protocols

Patient-specific calibration, tuning and customization

continuously collect and process raw information, store them locally, and send them to the personal server

Bluetooth Disadvantages
transfer raw data from sensors to the monitoring station

limitation for prolonged wearable monitoring too complex power demanding prone to interference

Zigbee wireless protocol

High level communication protocols using small, low-power digital radios based IEEE 802.15.4 standard for wireless personal area networks (WPANs)

targeted at RF applications that require a low data rate, long battery life, and secure networking

Personal server level

Initialization, configuration and synchronization of WBAN nodes Control and monitor operation of WBAN nodes Collection of sensor readings from physiological sensors An audio and graphical user-interface early warnings or guidance Secure communication with remote healthcare provider servers Internet-enabled PDA 3G cell phone A home personal computer

Medical Services
An emergency service If the received data are out of range or indicate an imminent medical condition The exact location of the patient If the personal server is equipped with GPS sensor monitoring the activity of the patient By medical professionals Issue altered guidance based on the new information

ActiS : Activity Sensor

ISPM ADXL202 Accelerometer ADXL202 Accelerometer ECG Signal Conditioning Telos CC2420 (ZigBee) TI MSP430F149 Flash USB Interface

TI MSP430F1232

ECG electrodes

The Telos platform 8MHz MSP430F1611 microcontroller 10KB RAM and 48KB Flash Memory UART(Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter) ISPM MSP430F1232 microcontroller 10-bit ADC and UART

ActiS : Motion Sensor

ActiS sensor as Motion Sensor Vertical Plane = to detection of gait phases

ActiS : Signal Processing

Conclusion
Continuous monitoring in the ambulatory setting early detection of abnormal conditions
increased level of confidence improve quality of life

supervised rehabilitation potential knowledge discovery

through data mining of all gathered information