set conference paper

1. SET CONFERENCES 2016
SCOPE M.sc (CS)
Project guide by: Students Reg No:
Mr. R.Rajkumar 15msc0015
SCOPE Bio Informatics HOD 15msc0017
Mail id: rrajkumar@vit.ac.in 15msc0034
VIT UNIVERSITY

2. Remote health monitoring systems using Wearable Body Sensors
Abstract:
Monitoring of physical, environmental conditions can be done by using Wireless sensor
network (WSN). In recent times WSN is found its application in healthcare and healthcare
management system. This study is done for the use of WSN in providing real-time feedback
to the user as well as the medical staff. For this study medical sensors were employed in order
to collect and monitor various physiological data and vital signs of cardiovascular disease
(CVD’s) patients for the efficient response to emergency conditions and the transmission of
signals to medical server and intelligent personal digital assistant (IPDA) through optical
cables and 4G communications respectively. Lightweight medical sensors such as Holter
monitor also known as ambulatory electrocardiography device can be used to create a
wireless body area network (WBAN) so that vital health signs can be monitored efficiently.
In the present study we propose the use of Medical Super Sensor to collect data sensed by the
sensors and transfer the information to a cloud server where the data can be accessed by the
medical staff from distant locations.
Keywords: Wireless sensor network, Holter monitor, Wireless body area networks,
intelligent personal digital assistant systems.
Introduction:
Recently, Wireless sensor networks (WSN) have been used in various fields such as
Environmental/Earth sensing, air pollution monitoring, forest fire detection, water quality
monitoring, healthcare management, military surveillance etc. WSN is widely used in
industries machine health monitoring, data logging, waste water monitoring etc. Recent
technology advances in manufacturing of microprocessors radio interface with single chip
have created a new league of wireless sensor networks which can be used in various fields.
Several nodes which are interconnected to each other which is connected to several sensors
comprises the WSN. The sensor consists of various parts such has microcontroller and radio
transceiver with an internal antenna or it is connected to an external antenna. Such a complex
yet efficient system makes WSNs a robust, fault tolerance system with an increase in spatial
coverage. This setup of WSN are contrary to the traditional sensor networks which were
developed in a predetermined manner. WSN can be used to track and monitor the health

3. conditions of patients in urban and rural areas. The use of WSN will decrease the work load
of the medical staff and also decrease the medical errors caused due to human negligence and
carelessness.
The mortality rate in hospitals can be decreased if the correct information is given to the
patient at the right time. In order to provide the correct information the medical staff and the
doctors should be having accurate information in the given period of time and the medical
staff should be able to access the information for any distances and there should be no delay
in receiving or the delivering of the information.In severe conditions of health crisis such as
heart attack the efficiency of the treatment provided to the patient can be improved if the staff
is able to access the previous reports of the patients. Therefore providing a secured and low
transmission latency to patient’s vital health signs are of importance in life threating diseases
like cardiovascular diseases (CVD), blood pressure, cancer etc. The placement of sensors can
be done on human body thus creating a network called a wireless body area network
(WBAN) this network can be used to collect patient’s vital signs.it must be noted that the
power consumption by the sensors takes place through battery and the amount of power
utilised is very minimal and there should be reliable data transfer between personal server and
WBAN.
With the use of sensors in combination with communication devices such as cell phones i.e
PDA General packet data service (GPRS), 4g and the internet the sensor network can keep
the caregivers, doctors and the medical staff well informed about the health condition of the
patient and also it can show the trends in the variation of vital health signs. The wireless
sensor network can also be referred to as wireless biomedical sensor network (WBSN) when
it is used in biomedical areas. When multiple sensors are connected to the body of individual
the network of such sensors can be called body sensor network (BSN).BSNs have major
advantages in healthcare management systems such as; since they are in close contact with
the body they can detect minute variation in the physiological condition of an individual and
report accurate results. Thus they can monitor efficiently. These sensors use minimal energy
and when such sensors are connected to a high efficiency communication device they can
help in the transmission of signals with low error rate. These sensors help in minimising the
work load of the hospital staff and also by the use of such sensors the physician can access
several reports of the patients at the same time. The sensor helps to categorize the data based
on the severity of the condition and hence it helps the doctor to give first preference to more

4. critical conditions. The sensor also helps the doctor and the medical staff to get access to the
patients profile from a distance place when the information is stored in a cloud network.
In the present study a proposal is made for the use of Medical Super Sensor (MSS) to collect
multiple physiological data which is sensed by the sensors of WBAN and forward it to a
cloud server. An Intelligent Personal Digital Assistant (IPDA) is used, this has the ability to
prioritize the data collected by the sensor and transfer it to the cloud server based of the
patient’s current health condition and content of the data.
Healthcare applications of wireless sensors:
The common applications of wireless sensors are as follows:
Diabetes mellitus:Diabetes mellitus involves the improper levels of glucose in the blood of
the patient. It is been reported the about 1.1 million people died due to this condition in the
year 2005. World Health Organization (WHO) also reported that 220 million people suffer
from this condition worldwide. Diabetes also causes series of other complications such has
kidney problem, heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure etc. Treatment includes insulin
injections, exercise and changes in eating habits.WBAN can to made use in this condition for
the efficient detection of glucose level and this method being less invasive is better preferred
for the accurate transferring of data collected.
Cardiovascular diseases : Cardiovascular diseases includes a large number of conditions
associated with heart and the vascular system. This includes high blood pressure, myocardial
infraction, block in the coronary artery, cardiac arrest etc. In these condition it is very
important that the vital signs are detected earlier and the treatment is administered as soon as
possible. It is mostly seen that the patient dies mostly when the signs are neglected in the
early stages.WBANs can be used to detect the changes in the pulse rate, heartbeat, the blood
pressure and transfer the data from the patient to the physician and also this can be prioritized
in order to alert the physician in case of emergency.
Asthma:Asthma involves uneasiness in breathing. This is majorly caused due to the allergens
present in the air. Hence air quality is very important and is a crucial condition for the well-
being of patients with this condition. WBANs as we know is used to sense the air quality and
pollution levels of air. When WBANs is combined with Global Positioning System (GPS)
which gives an exact location of the patient the air quality present in that location can be

5. sensed and the patient can be alerted about the situation hence proper care can be taken so
that no problem is caused to the patient.
Cancer Detection:Currently, cancer is considered as one of the biggest threats to human
kind. The number of cancer cases is been increased drastically. WBNs in combination with
other miniaturized sensors can be used in the diagnosis of cancer as the cancer cells express
distinct types of surface markers, enabling the physician to diagnose cancer patients with
better efficiency and accuracy.
Bone health:Usually women above 50 years of age are found to lose the deposited calcium
in their body and a condition called osteoporosis is caused. This condition can cause
complications such has fracture, lesser bone density, bone fragility etc.WBANs combined
with other sensors can be used to know the bone density and also check the amount of
calcium present in the body so this condition can be treated as early as possible.
Artificial Retina:Certain chips called as Optaelectronic Retina Prosthesis (ORP) could be
implanted in the rear part of human eye, this system can help blind individuals and people
with low vision to view normally.
System Architecture:
This describes the overview of the remote healthcare monitoring systems used for
cardiovascular diseases (CVD’s). This component consists of three tiers shown in the
Figure 1. This is composed of
1. Wearable body sensor
2. Personal Server (PPS) using PDA
3. Medical server connected to the cloud device
First tier:
This component is mainly the patient, it consists of different types of wearable body
sensors which is with the patient inorder to detect the physiological changes in the
body of the patient. In this case a Holter monitor is used with detects the heart
condition of patient the basic components of this system is as follows

6. Recorder
The span of the recorder varies relying upon the maker of the gadget. The normal
measurements of today's Holter screens are around 110x70x30 mm yet some are just
61x46x20 mm and weigh 99 g. Most of the gadgets work with two AA batteries. On the off
chance that the batteries are drained, a few Holters permit their substitution actually amid
checking. The vast majority of the Holters screen the ECG just in a few channels. Contingent
upon the model (maker), distinctive tallies of leads and lead frameworks are utilized. Today's
pattern is to minimize the quantity of prompts guarantee the persistent's solace amid
recording. Albeit 2/3 channel recording has been utilized for quite a while as a part of the
Holter checking history, as of late 12 channel Holters have showed up. These frameworks
utilize the fantastic Mason-Likar lead framework, hence creating the sign in the same
representation as amid the regular rest ECG and/or anxiety test estimation. These Holters then
permit to substitute anxiety test examination in cases the anxiety test is unrealistic for the
current patient. They are additionally suitable when examining patients after myocardial
localized necrosis. Recordings from these 12-lead screens are of an essentially lower
determination than those from a standard 12-lead ECG and now and again have been
demonstrated to give deluding ST section representation, despite the fact that a few gadgets
permit setting the inspecting recurrence up to 1000 Hz for unique reason exams like the late
potential.
An alternate intriguing development is the vicinity of a triaxial development sensor, which
records the patient physical action, and later shows in the product three separate statuses:
resting, remaining up, or strolling. This helps the cardiologist to better investigate the
recorded occasions having a place with the patient movement and journal. Holter checking is
an extremely helpful piece of an ECG. Some advanced gadgets additionally can record a
vocal patient journal entrance that can be later listened to by the specialist.
Analysing software:
At the point when the recording of ECG sign is done (for the most part following 24 or 48
hours), it is dependent upon the doctor to perform the sign examination. Since it would be to
a great degree time requesting to scan through such a long flag, there is a coordinated
programmed investigation transform in every Holter programming which naturally decides

7. distinctive sorts of heart thumps, rhythms, and so forth. However the achievement of the
programmed examination is nearly connected with the sign quality. The quality itself chiefly
relies on upon the connection of the terminals to the patient body. In the event that these are
not appropriately appended, electromagnetic aggravation can impact the ECG sign bringing
about an extremely loud record. In the event that the patient moves quickly, the mutilation
will be significantly greater. Such record is then exceptionally hard to process. Other than the
connection and nature of cathodes, there are different components influencing the sign
quality, for example, muscle tremors, testing rate and determination of the digitized sign
(superb gadgets offer higher examining recurrence). The programmed examination regularly
gives the doctor data about heart pulsated morphology, thumped interim estimation, heart rate
variability, musicality diagram and patient journal (minutes when the patient pressed the
patient catch). Progressed frameworks likewise perform otherworldly investigation, ischemic
trouble assessment, diagram of persistent's movement or PQ section examination. An
alternate necessity is the capacity of pacemaker discovery and examination. Such capacity is
helpful when one needs to check the right pacemaker capacity

8. Second Tier:
Personal server:
This is he server of the hospital in which the data of the patient is being stored. This server
can be accessed by registered family members of the patient, medical staff and the doctor.
Since, it is difficult to categorise each and every information this server is implemented with
Intelligent Personal Digital Assistant (IPDA) so that the major trends seen in the heart health
of the patient is viewed in the form of a graphical representation by the registered members of
the server.Certain cirtical signs are notified to the medical staff and the doctor. Hence, during
emergency the patient can be treated.
Priority Signaling and Data compression:
Since this is a wearable body sensor it has to be in contact with the patient most of the time
and the data which is colleced is consumes a huge amount of the storage space and
enoromous amount of data cannot to managed by the medical stff as a result even if the data
has certain important information, there is high chances that the data can be lost and the vital
signs can be negelted. Due to the above reasons we propose prioritising the data. Data such
has electrocardiograph, oxygen saturation, blood pressure and the pulse of the patient is given
importance. These data are given high traffic rate in the server. Other data which are thought
to be less imortant are given low data traffic. The high traffic dat are sent to the server via a
4G connection system whereas the data with less traffic are sent to the system via a 3G
connection system. In this manner the data collected can be effectively managed by the
medical staff and vital signs can be given high priority. Using this ysytem the data traffic can
be managed in an effeient manner.During emergency situation or when the trends of the heart
health is found be varying in a large amount, a notification is sent to the medical staff in
charge of the patient, when proper response is not given to such situation the notification is
also sent to the group of cardiologist doctors.
Third Tier:
This categry of the system architecture mainly deals with the communication system between
the family members of the patient, the medical staff and the group of cardiologist doctors.
During certain emergency condition when the patient is not present in the hospital, the IPDA
is programmed to send a notification to the ambulance system of the hosital with the exact

9. location of the patient. This is made possible with the help of a GPS system which is tagged
with the wearable body sensor. This module is also concerned with the communication
system between the medical staff and the group of cardiologist. In this system the doctor can
direct the medical staff with certain modes of treatment when the doctor is in a far distance.
However, such treatment must be given to the patient in the presence of an experienced
general physican. This module is also concerned with the data management system of the
cloud server. The data which is present in the local medical server must be deleted at regular
interval of time so that there is efficient utilization of the memory of the server. This can be
done only by the registered cardiologist doctor. The data which is found to be junk and is of
less importance for future use can be deleted by the doctor alone. However the data can be
deleted only in the local medical server. The cloud device will still contain the data, this data
can be managed future when the need arises.
Conclusion:
The above proposal ismainly with the view of treating cardiovascular patients in an effective
manner so that the mortality rate due to delayed treatment can be reduced. Since the mode of
communication is 4G the communication betwwen the patient and the doctor incharge of the
patient can be fast and the huge data generated by the wearable body sensors can be
effectively used for the treatment of the patient and the compressionof such data helps in less
memory utilization of the server and faster accessibility. Hence, this new technology can be
used to monitor the patient regularly and give a real-time feedback of the cardiovascular
health of the patient.
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