Smart Bioimpedance Device for the Assessment of Peripheral Muscles in Patients with COPD.

Muscle dysfunction and muscle atrophy are common complications resulting from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). The evaluation of the peripheral muscles can be carried out through the assessment of their structural components from ultrasound images or their functional components through isometric and isotonic strength tests. This evaluation, performed mainly on the quadriceps muscle, is not only of great interest for diagnosis, prognosis and monitoring of COPD, but also for the evaluation of the benefits of therapeutic interventions.

A Sensor-Based mHealth Platform for Remote Monitoring and Intervention of Frailty Patients at Home.

Frailty syndrome is an independent risk factor for serious health episodes, disability, hospitalization, falls, loss of mobility, and cardiovascular disease. Its high reversibility demands personalized interventions among which exercise programs are highly efficient to contribute to its delay. Information technology-based solutions to support frailty have been recently approached, but most of them are focused on assessment and not on intervention.

Special Issue "Body Sensors Networks for E-Health Applications".

Body Sensor Networks (BSN) have emerged as a particularization of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) in the context of body monitoring environments, closely linked to healthcare applications. These networks are made up of smart biomedical sensors that allow the monitoring of physiological parameters and serve as the basis for e-Health applications. This Special Issue collects some of the latest developments in the field of BSN related to new developments in biomedical sensor technologies, the design and experimental characterization of on-body/in-body antennas and new communication protocols for BSN, including some review studies.

Sensor Technologies to Manage the Physiological Traits of Chronic Pain: A Review.

Non-oncologic chronic pain is a common high-morbidity impairment worldwide and acknowledged as a condition with significant incidence on quality of life. Pain intensity is largely perceived as a subjective experience, what makes challenging its objective measurement. However, the physiological traces of pain make possible its correlation with vital signs, such as heart rate variability, skin conductance, electromyogram, etc.

Lessons Learned about the Design and Active Characterization of On-Body Antennas in the 2.4 GHz Frequency Band.

This work addresses the design and experimental characterization of on-body antennas, which play an essential role within Body Sensor Networks. Four antenna designs were selected from a set of eighteen antenna choices and finally implemented for both passive and active measurements. The issues raised during the process of this work (requirements study, technology selection, development and optimization of antennas, impedance matching, unbalanced to balanced transformation, passive and active characterization, off-body and on-body configurations, etc.

Smart Bioimpedance Spectroscopy Device for Body Composition Estimation.

The purpose of this work is to describe a first approach to a smart bioimpedance spectroscopy device for its application to the estimation of body composition. The proposed device is capable of carrying out bioimpedance measurements in multiple configurable frequencies, processing the data to obtain the modulus and the bioimpedance phase in each of the frequencies, and transmitting the processed information wirelessly. Another novelty of this work is a new algorithm for the identification of Cole model parameters, which is the basis of body composition estimation through bioimpedance spectroscopy analysis.

Smart Vest for Respiratory Rate Monitoring of COPD Patients Based on Non-Contact Capacitive Sensing.

In this paper, a first approach to the design of a portable device for non-contact monitoring of respiratory rate by capacitive sensing is presented. The sensing system is integrated into a smart vest for an untethered, low-cost and comfortable breathing monitoring of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) patients during the rest period between respiratory rehabilitation exercises at home. To provide an extensible solution to the remote monitoring using this sensor and other devices, the design and preliminary development of an e-Health platform based on the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) paradigm is also presented.

Measurement Issues in Galvanic Intrabody Communication: Influence of Experimental Setup.

Significance: The need for increasingly energy-efficient and miniaturized bio-devices for ubiquitous health monitoring has paved the way for considerable advances in the investigation of techniques such as intrabody communication (IBC), which uses human tissues as a transmission medium. However, IBC still poses technical challenges regarding the measurement of the actual gain through the human body. The heterogeneity of experimental setups and conditions used together with the inherent uncertainty caused by the human body make the measurement process even more difficult.

A distributed approach to alarm management in chronic kidney disease.

This paper presents the feasibility study of using a distributed approach for the management of alarms from chronic kidney disease patients. In a first place, the key issues regarding alarm definition, classification, and prioritization according to available normalization efforts are analyzed for the main scenarios addressed in hemodialysis. Then, the middleware proposed for alarm management is described, which follows the publish/subscribe pattern, and supports the Object Management Group data distribution service (DDS) standard.

Design and implementation of a smart sensor for respiratory rate monitoring.

This work presents the design, development and implementation of a smart sensor to monitor the respiratory rate. This sensor is aimed at overcoming the drawbacks of other systems currently available in market, namely, devices that are costly, uncomfortable, difficult-to-install, provide low detection sensitivity, and little-to-null patient-to-patient calibration. The device is based on capacitive sensing by means of an LC oscillator.

Galvanic coupling transmission in intrabody communication: a finite element approach.

Galvanic coupling in intrabody communication (IBC) is a technique that couples low-power and low-frequency voltages and currents into the human body, which acts as a transmission medium, and thus constitutes a promising approach in the design of personal health devices. Despite important advances being made during recent years, the investigation of relevant galvanic IBC parameters, including the influence of human tissues and different electrode configurations, still requires further research efforts. The objective of this work is to disclose knowledge into IBC galvanic coupling transmission mechanisms by using a realistic 3-D finite element model of the human arm.

SoM: a smart sensor for human activity monitoring and assisted healthy ageing.

This paper presents the hardware and software design and implementation of a low-cost, wearable, and unobstructive intelligent accelerometer sensor for the monitoring of human physical activities. In order to promote healthy lifestyles to elders for an active, independent, and healthy ageing, as well as for the early detection of psychomotor abnormalities, the activity monitoring is performed in a holistic manner in the same device through different approaches: 1) a classification of the level of activity that allows to establish patterns of behavior; 2) a daily activity living classifier that is able to distinguish activities such as climbing or descending stairs using a simple method to decouple the gravitational acceleration components of the motion components; and 3) an estimation of metabolic expenditure independent of the activity performed and the anthropometric characteristics of the user. Experimental results have demonstrated the feasibility of the prototype and the proposed algorithms.

Distributed circuit modeling of galvanic and capacitive coupling for intrabody communication.

Modeling of intrabody communication (IBC) entails the understanding of the interaction between electromagnetic fields and living tissues. At the same time, an accurate model can provide practical hints toward the deployment of an efficient and secure communication channel for body sensor networks. In the literature, two main IBC coupling techniques have been proposed: galvanic and capacitive coupling.

Personalization and adaptation to the medium and context in a fall detection system.

The main objective of this paper is to present a distributed processing architecture that explicitly integrates capabilities for its continuous adaptation to the medium, the context, and the user. This architecture is applied to a falling detection system through: 1) an optimization module that finds the optimal operation parameters for the detection algorithms of the system devices; 2) a distributed processing architecture that provides capabilities for remote firmware update of the smart sensors. The smart sensor also provides an estimation of activities of daily living (ADL), which results very useful in monitoring of the elderly and patients with chronic diseases.

Study of attenuation and dispersion through the skin in intrabody communications systems.

Intrabody communication (IBC) is a technique that uses the human body as a transmission medium for electrical signals to connect wireless body sensors, e.g., in biomedical monitoring systems.

Design and implementation of a distributed fall detection system--personal server.

In this paper, the main results related to a fall detection system are shown by means of a personal server for the control and processing of the data acquired from multiple intelligent biomedical sensors. This server is designed in the context of a telehealthcare system for the elderly, to whom falls represent a high-risk cause of serious injuries, and its architecture can be extended to patients suffering from chronic diseases. The main design issues and developments in terms of the server hardware and software are presented with the aim of providing a real-time analysis of the processed biosignals.