title: Compliance and technical feasibility of long-term health monitoring with wearable and ambient technologies.
abstract: We developed a system consisting of both wearable and ambient technologies designed to monitor personal wellbeing for several months during daily life. The variables monitored included bodyweight, blood pressure, heart-rate variability and air temperature. Two different user groups were studied: there were 17 working-age subjects participating in a vocational rehabilitation programme and 19 elderly people living in an assisted living facility. The working-age subjects collected data for a total of 1406 days; the average participation period was 83 days (range 43-99). The elderly subjects collected data for a total of 1593 days; the average participation period was 84 days (range 19-107). Usage, technical feasibility and usability of the system were also studied. Some technical and practical problems appeared which we had not expected such as thunder storm damage to equipment in homes and scheduling differences between staff and the subjects. The users gave positive feedback in almost all their responses in a questionnaire. The study suggests that the data-collection rate is likely be 70-90% for typical health monitoring data.
authors.affiliation: Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT), Oulu, Finland. Juho.Merilahti@vtt.fi
authors.forename: Juho
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Merilahti
authors.forename: Juha
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pärkkä
authors.forename: Kari
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Antila
authors.forename: Paula
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Paavilainen
authors.forename: Elina
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Mattila
authors.forename: Esko-Juhani
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Malm
authors.forename: Ari
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Saarinen
authors.forename: Ilkka
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Korhonen
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001145:Arrhythmias, Cardiac / Q000175:diagnosis*; D001794:Blood Pressure / Q000502:physiology*; D001835:Body Weight; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D005260:Female; D005387:Finland; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010349:Patient Compliance; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D017216:Telemedicine / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards; D013686:Telemetry / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*