Pervasive computing in healthcare - prospects and clinical applications

Abstract: Wearable sensor technology has developed rapidly over the last years. One of the prominent - and highly researched - application areas deemed relevant is healthcare, where wearable technologies promise e.g. unobtrusive long-term monitoring of vital signs, especially for chronically ill patients, or assistance to make up for age-related functional deficits. Many prototypes, however, have not been marketed on a wide scale. Apart from acceptance issues - both on the patients' as on the physicians' sides - integration into current resp. new health information systems is a key problem. Several clinical application examples of wearable sensor technology will be presented, e.g. fall detection and prediction and exercise training control. Furthermore, disease management prospects will be elucidated using the example of the German research network "design of environments for ageing".

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