Cars That Care

Health technology of the future promises an easy life with no interruption in your daily activities. For example, information about your health could be collected while you're driving. A car is already viewed as a health platform and wellness coach by leading manufacturers. How would this work?


To begin with, by measuring our heart rate. The electrocardiographic (ECG) seat built by Ford is based on studies of sensors in beds for intensive care units. Unlike traditional monitoring systems, it does not require attaching electrodes to the skin and can measure signals through relatively thin cloth. Toyota's response to Ford's seat is an ECG-sensing steering wheel.

Regardless of what type of system incorporates the sensors, clever algorithmic science is needed to account for artifacts caused by lateral movements. Wartzek and colleagues showed that unobtrusive and reliable measurements of heart rate are indeed possible during driving by identifying useful intervals in heavily distorted ECG signals (which is easier on the highway than in city traffic). Moreover, data from ECG, GPS and optical devices could  be combined  with other measurements though, as Doherty and colleagues showed, significant data processing issues still remain. Companies like Aurametrix are addressing the problem of noisy environments with innovative approaches. 

So in a few years cars will start to take care of us. We need to polish up the sensor and data processing technologies and also manage the chemicals added to the interior of the car--including those contributing to the "new car" smell.  Unhealthy particles in some automobile interiors already exceed US EPA standards, especially in heavy traffic situations (although bicyclists and pedestrians have their own problems). The latest report by HealthyStuff.org ranks over 200 of the most popular models based on chemical-emitting steering wheels, dashboards, armrests and seats. As the table shows, stylish and sporty models are at the bottom of the list.  


There are many reasons to believe these problems will be addressed. If so, we can look forward to a future with safely built in to the systems we use in our every day lives.


REFERENCES


Wartzek T, Eilebrecht B, Lem J, Lindner HJ, Leonhardt S, & Walter M (2011). ECG on the road: robust and unobtrusive estimation of heart rate. IEEE transactions on bio-medical engineering, 58 (11), 3112-20 PMID: 21824839

Doherty ST, & Oh P (2012). A multi-sensor monitoring system of human physiology and daily activities. Telemedicine journal and e-health : the official journal of the American Telemedicine Association, 18 (3), 185-92 PMID: 22480300

M-health, or who will take care of me?

What is the real way to reform Health? asks Eric Wahlgren from DailyFinance, and answers 'Wireless Technology'. The coming convergence of wireless communications, social networking and medicine will transform health care agrees The Economist.

Wireless health (also called mobile health, e-health, m-health or telemedicine) will enable your body parts to make phone calls, your shoes or carpet to consult your doctor , your bed to measure your blood sugar and your phone itself to decide on whether your mental health is deteriorating - based on how quickly you answer the phone and recognize the caller.

No more lies on how much you ate or when you took your last pill. If your heart and other organs are not yet monitored by smart devices, your doctor will listen to your lungs over the phone or check how your knees are doing in 3D.

We are shifting to digital medical era starting from the relatively modest devices to keep you healthy and fit, evolving teletracking, technology, M-health sensors, Telemedicine tools and gadgets, Health 2.0 software tools, and algorithms for health data mining.

There is far more than a list of 101 things to do with a mobile phone in healthcare first compiled a year ago - including simple SMS messaging and GPS-based applications such as Medication Reminders (SMS) and Allergy Alert Service For Asthmatics (SMS and GPS), management of Chronic conditions such as Diabetes, hospital based RFID and the use of technologies such as Bluetooth and ZigBee in health and fitness monitoring.

It's time to take health care off the mainframe says Intel's Eric Dishman in his talk on
behavioral markers, vital sign monitoring and aging care delivery:

On M-Health, Wireless Health and Smart Plasters

M-health or mobile health is a recent term for mobile devices supporting medical practice. This term is closely related to Telemedicine (coined in the 1970s) and to another recently introduced term wireless health.

Aurametrix wrote about exciting health gadgets and devices in several last year's blogs (such as Telemedicine: part 1, Telemedicine: part 2, Devices to keep you healthy, Going for the piece of a healthcare pie)

Many companies - large and small -make use of wireless sensors to collect clinically-actionable data for point-of-care. Companies including GE, Cinterion, Cardionet, Heatlhsmart, Digi, RIM, Proteus, E-Device, MedApps, are now working in mobile health area offering products and developing prototypes. Check, for example T+ Medical, Turkcell's Saglik365, Orange's Diabeo, Telstra's My-Glucose, Cardionet's MCOT™, and numerous cell phone applications (as some people say, the Phone will become your doctor) such as Allscripts remote. And there will be many more exciting developments - portable wearable devices scanning brain for signs of depression & stress disorders,

Everyday choices determine your health better than genomics. In addition to exciting gizmos and wearable monitors measuring activity, heart rate, sleep patterns, some companies are working on tiny implantable sensors helping to monitor health and health-related behaviors.
Proteus Biomedical is implanting tiny sensors into pills that send signals translatable into messages - such as "just took lipitor at 6:20pm" - sent in a very safe and private way to a wearable plaster, or a smart-band aide. This smart plaster is also picking up information on health-related measurements such as your heart rate, breathing patterns, activity level, stress, respiration
get sends you reminders. Last September Novartis worked with Proteus on a small 20 patient study to track patients’ compliance with their blood pressure drug regimen. This year the companies will work on sensor technology in organ transplantation.


American tech companies, taking notice of the unmistakable demographic trends, have launched a surge in gudgets for aging population - dubbed the silvertech. Emergency alert services have become a proliferating category in silvertech, along with sensor systems for the home, various kinds of long-distance health monitoring and smart medication dispensers that provide reminders and control dosage. Some dispensers signal a caregiver when a dose isn’t taken or a pharmacy when it’s time for a refill.

GE scientists are developing wearable RFID sensors to detect airborne chemical agents - to alert people to the presence of environmental chemical agents in the air. A novel technology based on resonant antenna structures of RFID sensors coated with various sensing films will recognize specific volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and chemical agents with part-per-billion detection limits. The sensor could also be used to analyze a person’s breath. Simply breathing on the sensor could potentially pick up biomarkers that serve as an early signal to the presence of certain diseases such as diabetes or cancer and metabolic disorders.

Non Invasive Health Monitoring with mHealth

View more documents from Bart Collet.

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• GE's wearable sensors would warn of hazards in the air (timesunion.com)
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• Daily Dose: There's BPA in That? (dailywd.womansday.com)
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• The new healthcare: Smart band aids, digital pills, wrist bands promise to track your health (venturebeat.com)
• In Health Care Today, It's Electronic All the Way (nlm.nih.gov)
• mHealth, Alpha Daughters and Healthcare Reform (prweb.com)