IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - July/August 2022 - 34

Home Healthcare Technologies & Services
research has focused on the development of wearable
devices for clinical purposes.1,20-25 Such devices
are currently well developed and established,
having their own dedicated applications and
media platforms. Furthermore, data from different
devices can be combined and sent to various sites,
applications, and devices for further processing.
Therefore, in 2016, the National Health Service in
U.K. announced that health-related applications
and wearable devices designed for monitoring
chronic illness should be given free-of-charge to
patients. Such applications, wearable devices, and
sites are expected to significantly enhance
patients' quality of life, as theypromote a healthier
lifestyle andphysical exercise. The positive impact
from wearing such " intelligent " devices on
patients' life is now well documented. These devices
are also highly esteemed as they providemultidimensional
data which, in turn, can contribute to
the environmental epidemiology.23 It is also worth
pointing out that when a proper measurement
campaign is carried out, eugenic birth can be reassured,
even when unwanted conditions may
emerge. In turn, the birth quality of a given population
canbe significantly improved.25
In addition to the above, the use of novel,
sophisticated materials, and reduced size electronics
has led to the development ofminiaturized
body-worn sensors.1,15,26-28 Such devices can be
efficiently utilized by women in pregnancy. For
example, pregnancy stages can be benefited from
in-time alarming of unwanted conditions or even
from scheduled appointments with the physician.29
In addition, such technologies are useful
for checking weight management, gestational diabetes
mellitus, and asthma and can significantly
improve self-monitoring. Finally, the application
of mobile technologies during pregnancy has
revealed that their use can be beneficial throughout
prenatal and postnatal periods.30
Of significant importance is the use of wearable
devices for the early detection of the so-called peripartum
cardiomyopathy (PPCM),which is a potentially
life-threatening pregnancy associated
myocardial disease, associated with heart failure
(HF) and left venticular (LV) systolic dysfunction,
occurring about the end or after pregnancy. Furthermore,
an outcome of PPCM is the psychological
deterioration in conjunction to medical
treatment. It is worth pointing out that some
women with low left ventricular ejection fraction
who accepted to use wearable devices, such as
cardioverter/defibrillator life vests, exhibited
events of ventricular fibrillation with successful
therapy. It is therefore envisaged that the early
detection of PPCM by using wearable sensors can
prevent the deterioration of PPCM occurrence, so
that most of the subjects can successfully recover.
An imminent result could also be the avoidance of
the appearance of psychological disorders.31
The surveillance of fetus throughout pregnancy
is also useful to avoid very dangerous life-threatening
situations, such as fetal hypoxia and asphyxia.21
To this end, a usual measuring technique of the
fetal's conditions is cardiotocography, which
employs Doppler ultrasounds. Unfortunately, this
technique can be used strictly in a clinical environment
due to its complexity and the need of a dedicated
acting personnel. Therefore, alternative
monitoring schemes have been presented in the
open technical literature, such as wearable devices
based on the acquisition of an abdominal electrocardiogram
(ECG). In doing so, a home screening
process is possible without the need of hospitalization.21
Another related work is available in Kazantsev
et al.,32 which addresses the prototyping of a
body-area network consisted of transducers, to
jointly monitor blood flow and FHR, employing
Doppler ultrasound. Furthermore, recent research
has reported that pregnant women felt comfortable
by wearing monitoring devices and thus that 70%
of them were keen to altering their behavior during
pregnancy, following personal suggestions originated
from mobile devices. Moreover, although
about 50% of the providers have not employed
such kind of technologies in clinical procedures,
they have seriously considered their use in the
near future.24 In Boatin et al.,33 it has been stated
that the majority of both clinicians and pregnant
women liked the mobile measuring technology
(over 95% and 65%, respectively). In the same
work, a system configuration using wireless technology
(Wi-Fi) for transmitting and receiving data
acquired from the ultrasound measurements has
been proposed. Unfortunately, the successful fetal
monitoring did not exceed 88%. Moreover, establishing
Wi-Fi communication was very challenging,
because of the high demand of accurate synchronization
between themobile device and the Internet.
The implementation of integrated embedded
systems for wearable monitoring applications is
another important factor to be considered. In such
system configurations, efficient algorithms should
be used for data analysis and henceforth a
34
IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine
IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - July/August 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - July/August 2022
