Remote patient monitoring: a comprehensive study

Healthcare is a field that is rapidly developing in technology and services. A recent development in this area is remote monitoring of patients which has many advantages in a fast aging world population with increasing health complications. With relatively simple applications to monitor patients inside hospital rooms, the technology has developed to the extent that the patient can be allowed normal daily activities at home while still being monitored with the use of modern communication and sensor technologies. Sensors for monitoring essential vital signs such as electrocardiogram reading, heart rate, respiration rate, blood pressure, temperature, blood glucose levels and neural system activity are available today. Range of remote healthcare varies from monitoring chronically ill patients, elders, premature children to victims of accidents. These new technologies can monitor patients based on the illness or based on the situation. The technology varies from sensors attached to body to ambient sensors attached to the environment and new breakthroughs show contactless monitoring which requires only the patient to be present within a few meters from the sensor. Fall detection systems and applications to monitor chronical ill patients have already become familiar to many. This study provides a review of the recent advances in remote healthcare and monitoring in both with-contact and contactless methods. With the review, the authors discuss some issues available in most systems. The paper also includes some directions for future research.