U.S. Rules for MBAN’s validate potential of mHealth.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has proposed to allocate radiofrequency spectrum and establish service and technical rules for the operation of Medical Body Area Network (MBAN) systems. Why is the FCC interested in this area? They envision that MBANs would provide a platform for the wireless networking of multiple body sensors used for monitoring a patient’s physiological data, primarily in health care facilities.

MBAN’s could be used to monitor an array of physiological data, such as temperature, pulse, blood glucose level, blood pressure, respiratory function and a variety of other physiological metrics. MBAN systems would primarily be used in health care facilities, with the potential also of being used in other patient care/monitoring circumstances. Unlike traditional medical telemetry systems which rely on separate uncoordinated links for each physiological function being monitored, MBAN systems could serve to wirelessly monitor all of the desired data of a single patient, which could then be aggregated and wirelessly transmitted to a remote location for evaluation.

Using MBAN systems to eliminate much of the wired cables that typically connect patients to monitoring equipment and to facilitate the aggregation and transfer of physiological data will offer several clinical benefits, including improved patient mobility and comfort, reduced risks of infection, reduced clinical errors, and reduced patient monitoring costs.

The Notice of the FCC seeks comment on options for accommodating MBAN operations in several frequency bands, and on the amount of spectrum that should be allocated for such use. More specifically, the Notice seeks comment on the feasibility of using the 2360-2400 MHz; 2300-2305 MHz and 2395-2400 MHz; the 2400-2483.5 MHz; or 5150-5250 MHz bands for this purpose, and on various licensing schemes that would be appropriate for any of these bands under consideration. In addition, the Notice seeks comment on tentative service and eligibility rules that would be similar in many respects to those for other wireless body-worn and implanted medical devices operating in the MedRadio Service in the 401-406 MHz bands.

This action by the Commission is by Notice of Proposed Rule Making (FCC 09-57).

Hope Phones for mHealth in Africa.

FrontlineSMS:Medic is a realy interesting initiative started by post-grad students out of Stanford University. They are the type of entrepreneurial digital natives that buck tradition and do something different, something that actually works. So what do the do? First was a rich text service. Now it’s the introduction of the HopePhone.

That team has built a major campaign, Hope Phones, to gather unused and discarded mobile phone handsets and convert them into funds for use in their mobile health campaigns in Malawi and elsewhere in Africa.

“Hope Phones will make use of the nearly 450,000 cell phones discarded every day in the US. HopePhones.org allows donors to print a free shipping label and send their old phone in to The Wireless Source, a global leader in wireless device recycling. The phone’s value allows FrontlineSMS:Medic to purchase usable, recycled cell phones for healthcare workers.”

This is a fundraising campaign, one put in place to promote a project that already has a track record of working.

Get involved:
1. Visit www.HopePhones.org and donate your old phones.
2. Spread the word:

• Email your friends, family, classmates and coworkers.
• Post on Facebook and become a fan of the Hope Phones page.
• Tell the world on Twitter – use #HopePhones as a tag so we can thank you.
• Let us know if you want the Hope Phones widget for your website or blog.

3. Contact info@hopephones.org if you’d like to help set up a Hope Phones collection center.

Fall detection integrated in your body-area network.

Sensoring your condition and your balance. Not new so why the mentioning? This one is integrated in a wireless body-area network (WBAN).

Halo Monitoring is a Huntsville, AL based company, that is marketing a wearable monitoring strap that can detect falls. This is one of the leading causes of hospitalization and accident-related deaths among senior citizens. Halo Monitoring is demonstrating its myHalo system at the Healthcare Unbound conference in Seattle this week.

The user wears a washable strap with electrodes embedded in the fabric to measure heart rate, skin temperature, calorie expenditure, sleep patterns and other factors critical to the health of frail, elderly people, and is able to detect whether the wearer has fallen or is simply lying down. It transmits readings via the ZigBee standard for wireless devices, to a home “gateway” that looks like a standard wireless Internet router. The gateway connects via an existing ethernet or a standard phone line to Halo’s monitoring center, which can send immediate web, email and text alerts to concerned caregivers, or, in emergency cases, a call-center operator can contact the caregiver directly or dial 911. “If Mom doesn’t answer the phone, you can log onto our website,” President and CEO Chris Otto says.

Monitoring is automatic, so the user doesn’t have to press a panic button. The Halo system costs $65 to $99 a month, and is currently in use only in the Huntsville area, as well as in Chicago and New Jersey, where the company has marketing partners. Expect a national rollout next year, according to Otto.

Stuff that inspires your mHealth-thoughts.

Take your mobile webbrowser and Adobe-software and what do you get? Astonishing new posibilities for mHealth-services to.

iPhone hacker Chris Hughes demos an open source software project that makes creating “augmented reality” a cinch. He shows how a virtual object (like a 3D spaceship), in cahoots with live footage, can interact with the real world right through a web browser.
https://ted.com/talks/view/id/583

Here it comes: the thought-controlled homebased healthcare system.

Homeautomation is setting huge steps forward. Control with your mobile is already in place. More healthcare sensoring will be connected. What will the future bring? Scientists in London are close to perfecting a smart home system that is controlled by the user’s thoughts.

In addition to my postings last week, the Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) uses electrodes attached to the scalp that allow the user to turn lights off and on, change the channel on the TV or open a door “by just thinking about it,” according to Science Daily.

g.tec, an Austrian medical engineering company, developed the (BCI) to assist the disabled. But it could have applications for the general population. g.tec teamed up with a group of international universities and research institutes as part of the EU-funded Presenccia project to incorporate its BCI technology into virtual environments. As part of the project a fully functioning smart home was created in virtual reality (VR).

“It has a kitchen, bathroom, living room… everything a normal home would have. People are able to move through it just by thinking about where they wanted to go,” Guger says. Being able to move and control objects in virtual reality solely by the power of thought could offer new and liberating possibilities for people with physical disabilities.

The electrodes are similar to the ones used by doctors for an Electroencephalogram (EEG). According to Science Daily, the BCI learns to identify the “distinctive patterns of neuronal activity produced when they imagine walking forwards, flicking on a light switch or turning up the radio.

Realtime mhealth monitoring slowly forward.

Begin this year there was a boost of mobile health applications and devices with some kind of sensoring. What progress is there? One of the area’s is the integration of different measurements and feedback. The Personal Health Monitor provides personalised, intelligent, non-intrusive, realtime health monitoring using wireless sensors and a mobile phone.

The wireless sensors can be either attached to the users body (for example ECG and Accelerometer) or can be external devices, such as a Blood Pressure Monitor or Weight Scale, that are used when required.

On the phone, the Personal Health Monitor software analyses, in real-time, the data received from the sensors, such as an electrocardiogram (ECG). The phone gives immediate feedback and personalised advice to the user based on the analysis of sensor data collected.

The windows-mobile application is a development of the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia and free to download. The system can also be used as a flexible Cardiac Rhythm Monitoring (CRM) system. It’s different from conventional Holter and Event monitor systems since it is not limited to just recording ECG arrhythmias but offers a range of other functionalities, that make it a personal health monitoring system for people that need to make life style changes such as lose weight or monitor their blood glucose level. The application can detect and record various arrhythmias and can react to serious arrhythmias such as ventricular fibrillation/tachycardia. The ECG signal quality is in the majority of cases of sufficient quality for a cardiologist to make an assessment.

Using 3G, or any other Internet connection available on the mobile phone, the data collected is transmitted to the Health Care data server where it becomes available for viewing and further analysis by qualified specialists. The broad range of features show the way in patient centred healthcare.

Is there a holographic future for mHealth?

Holograms are very interesting. There is a great potential also within the Healtcare arena. What does it look like? There was a sneakpreview on TrendHunting.

Holographic Text Messages will rock your world. With 1.5 million views in just a couple weeks, this viral video proves it. The video, by Inha Luke Yoo describes the concept as HoloText Messaging.The kicker of course, is that this sort of technology isn’t yet available. But this concept video does a great job of showing you what holographic text messages will be like.

Elderly enjoying fitness in a virtual reality environment.

People who exercise regularly stay fit, have a lower chance of suffering from chronic ailments and have better mental health overall. How do you maintain your condition when you are becoming of age? Older people value their independence, so for them to continue to be active in society it is essential that they remain fit and mobile. As a consequence, modern geriatric care cannot be complete without a strong focus on physical exercise.

Two days ago, on the Dutch conference Games and Healthcare, I discovered SilverFit.  “In our experience, people will exercise more intensely and more effectively when the exercise is fun instead of dull and repetitive” said Joris Wiersinga, director of SilverFit. “We create the fun element by making virtual reality computer games that stimulate exercise”.

Research at MIT in Boston describes three positive effects on patiënts who work with simulations:

1. The computer simulations stimulate and motivate the patient.
2. The patient practises more often.
3. Direct feedback from the simulations speeds up the learning process.

The SilverFit system is very easy for the player to use, always under supervision of a physiotherapist. All of the player’s movements are registered using a 3D camera. The player does not need to hold anything, press anything or use any menus. The camera registers the player’s movements and the game responds to them.

Many games can be played sitting down to exercise the legs, train balance, stretch the arms or practise standing up. At a higher level, the games can be played while standing with support from a walking stick, walker or supported by the physiotherapist. At the highest difficulty level, the games can be used for physical fitness exercises. Based on collected data, the games can be customised for use in the entire course of a rehabilitation plan.

In contrary to the Wii, the exercises and functionality are targeted to rehabilitation and physical therapy for the elderly. The system has seven games. These games can be played at several difficulty levels, leading to dozens of different game play experiences. Variations in individual therapy, group therapy or group activity are optional. SilverFit is an state of the art virtual training system and it’s price falls in the same price range as professional treadmills and other ‘traditional’ physical therapy equipment.

Mindcontrolling by mHealth-devices.

For some years now researchers at the University of Zaragoza in Spain are working on a wheelchair that would be operated by thought alone. Can we control devices just by thinking? The work in Spain has yielded a prototype model that essentially performs the basic task of getting a person from one place to another.

By first providing options on a laptop screen for where to go, the system then reads EEG waves as the user focuses on the preferred choice and moves the chair accordingly. The chair displays a realtime 3D HUD while the user concentrates on basic functions, such as rotating the chair left or right. That information is read by the chair via EEG waves (the electricity running along your scalp as a byproduct of your brain working). The chair also features laser sensors, allowing it to override a circumstance in which a misreading could drive the user into a wall or an innocent bystander.

The company Ambient introduces a same breakthrough wheelchair called the Audeo. Thought generated control is also in development in recent game controllers. And Adam Wilson, a graduate student at University of Wisconsin-Madison, linked up a “mind-reading” system developed at the Biomedical Engineering department to work with Twitter. By using EEG to record brain wave variations in patients focusing on a flashing letter. People who are locked-in and are not able to voluntarily use their muscles are now able to Tweet just like anyone else.

What’s Apple’s promise to mHealth-usage?

Today is the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference 2009. Will Apple reveal a MacTablet, iTablet, MacPad, or iPad? Many users who rely on pen-based computing interfaces are anxiously awaiting this mysterious Apple Tablet.

Will we see something new and exciting this year? Everyone knows that a new iPhone is going to be revealed. If rumors are true, then this one should be less expensive and offer more capabilities. Video will be its key strength (some think it will be called the Video iPhone) and it will have a front-facing camera. There may be an option to purchase one that lacks built-in memory (so you’d have to add a memory card). That means you’d have to be able to open it up somehow. Does that also mean we might see a user-swappable battery? See a picture with the expectations.