Managing Wireless Health Monitoring for Patients with Disabilities

To support patients' healthcare needs anywhere and anytime, health monitoring systems that use wireless and mobile networks are ideal. These monitoring systems should operate autonomously without patient intervention, which is generally not possible with patients suffering from one or more disabilities. Wireless health monitoring involves measuring and digitizing vital signs; transmitting packets over wireless networks; and delivering medical information to one of more healthcare professionals. To support the healthcare needs of people with disabilities, the monitoring system should transmit both routine vital signs and alerting signals when vital signs cross one or more individualized thresholds. A health monitoring device obtains, samples, and digitizes the vital signs for transmission as network packets. The health-monitoring device can be wearable or handheld device, depending on how difficult it is to use, its portability, and the monitored patient's disability. In addition to vital signs, the device must also monitor skin breakdowns, gait and balance, motor activity, agitation, patient location, cigarette smoke, and the amount of moisture in the patient's skin