title: eButton: A Wearable Computer for Health Monitoring and Personal Assistance.
abstract: Recent advances in mobile devices have made profound changes in people's daily lives. In particular, the impact of easy access of information by the smartphone has been tremendous. However, the impact of mobile devices on healthcare has been limited. Diagnosis and treatment of diseases are still initiated by occurrences of symptoms, and technologies and devices that emphasize on disease prevention and early detection outside hospitals are under-developed. Besides healthcare, mobile devices have not yet been designed to fully benefit people with special needs, such as the elderly and those suffering from certain disabilities, such blindness. In this paper, an overview of our research on a new wearable computer called eButton is presented. The concepts of its design and electronic implementation are described. Several applications of the eButton are described, including evaluating diet and physical activity, studying sedentary behavior, assisting the blind and visually impaired people, and monitoring older adults suffering from dementia.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, University of Pittsburgh.
authors.forename: Mingui
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Department of Health and Community Systems, University of Pittsburgh.
authors.forename: Lora E
authors.initials: LE
authors.lastname: Burke
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Pittsburgh.
authors.forename: Zhi-Hong
authors.initials: ZH
authors.lastname: Mao
authors.forename: Yiran
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Hsin-Chen
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Yicheng
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Bai
authors.forename: Yuecheng
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Chengliu
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Wenyan
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Jia
keywords: Chronic Disease; Diet; Health Monitoring; Healthcare; Lifestyle; Mobile Computing; Navigational Assistance to the blind; Obesity; Older Adults; Physical Activity; Sedentary behavior; Wearable Computer; Wellness