Abstract—This study has investigated whether extremely low frequency (ELF) electromagnetic fields... more Abstract—This study has investigated whether extremely low frequency (ELF) electromagnetic fields (EMFs) can alter human brain activity. Linearly polarised magnetic flux density of 20μT (rms) was generated using a standard double Helmholtz coils and applied to the human head over a sequence of 1 minute stimulations followed by one minute without stimulation in the following order of frequencies 50, 16.66, 13, 10, 8.33 and 4Hz. We collected recordings on 33 human volunteers under double-blind counter-balanced conditions. Each stimulation lasted for two minutes followed by one minute post-stimulation EEG recording. The same procedure was repeated for the EMF control sessions, where the order of control and exposure sessions was determined randomly according to the subject’s ID number. The rest period between two conditions (exposure and control) was 30 minutes. The results indicate that there was a significant increase in Alpha1, Alpha2, and Beta1 at the frontal brain region, and a si...
Proceedings of 17th International Conference of the Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, 1995
... The method is applied in anabsis of brain wave activities during altered state of consciousne... more ... The method is applied in anabsis of brain wave activities during altered state of consciousness related to healing process, in comparison with normal state. We have found the most pro-minent changes at lowerpequencies (delta and theta bands). I. Introduction ...
Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation, 2005
BACKGROUND: Recent technological advances in integrated circuits, wireless communications, and ph... more BACKGROUND: Recent technological advances in integrated circuits, wireless communications, and physiological sensing allow miniature, lightweight, ultra-low power, intelligent monitoring devices. A number of these devices can be integrated into a Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN), a new enabling technology for health monitoring. METHODS: Using off-the-shelf wireless sensors we designed a prototype WBAN which features a standard ZigBee compliant radio and a common set of physiological, kinetic, and environmental sensors. RESULTS: We introduce a multi-tier telemedicine system and describe how we optimized our prototype WBAN implementation for computer-assisted physical rehabilitation applications and ambulatory monitoring. The system performs real-time analysis of sensors' data, provides guidance and feedback to the user, and can generate warnings based on the user's state, level of activity, and environmental conditions. In addition, all recorded information can be transferre...
2005 IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology 27th Annual Conference, 2005
Wireless body area networks (WBANs) and their supporting information infrastructures offer unprec... more Wireless body area networks (WBANs) and their supporting information infrastructures offer unprecedented opportunities to monitor state of health without constraining the activities of a wearer. These mobile point-of-care systems are now realizable due to the convergence of technologies such as low-power wireless communication standards, plug-andplay device buses, off-the-shelf development kits for low-power microcontrollers, handheld computers, electronic medical records, and the Internet. To increase acceptance of personal monitoring technology while lowering equipment cost, advances must be made in interoperability (at both the system and device levels) and security. This paper presents an overview of WBAN infrastructure work in these areas currently underway in the Medical Component Design Laboratory at Kansas State University (KSU) and at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH). KSU efforts include the development of wearable health status monitoring systems that utilize ISO/IEEE 11073, Bluetooth, Health Level 7, and OpenEMed. WBAN efforts at UAH include the development of wearable activity and health monitors that incorporate ZigBee-compliant wireless sensor platforms with hardware-level encryption and the TinyOS development environment. WBAN infrastructures are complex, requiring many functional support elements. To realize these infrastructures through collaborative efforts, organizations such as KSU and UAH must define and utilize standard interfaces, nomenclature, and security approaches.
This paper demonstrates the principle of capacitive sensing in liquid crystal (LC) based sensors ... more This paper demonstrates the principle of capacitive sensing in liquid crystal (LC) based sensors with potential applications to chemical and biological systems. The theory for tracking the average molecular deformation partially disorder LC film via capacitive sensing is investigated. Three capacitance measurements are required to track the average molecular orientation as well as the degree of disorder in the LC film. Sensors' outputs are digitized by involving capacitance to digital converter to be applied to computerized applications. Both the experimental and calculated capacitances of a selected sensor structure are presented.
Proceedings of the Thirty-Seventh Southeastern Symposium on System Theory, 2005. SSST '05.
Wireless sensor networks emerged as a key technology for prolonged, unsupervised monitoring in a ... more Wireless sensor networks emerged as a key technology for prolonged, unsupervised monitoring in a wide spectrum of applications, from biological and environmental to civil and military. The sensor networks should operate autonomously for a long period of time with stringent resource and energy constraints. Energy conservation and power-awareness have become a focus of a number of research efforts, as sensor network nodes must operate on batteries or use energy extracted from the environment, such as solar energy or vibrations. Runtime power measurements and characterization of real existing systems are crucial for studies that target power optimizations, including techniques for dynamic adaptation based on the current energy status. This paper introduces an environment for unobtrusive real-time power monitoring that could be used for a number of wireless sensor platforms. We describe our methodology for calibration and validation of the environment and give empirical data for the Telos wireless sensor platform when it runs a subset of representative applications.
In this paper, we present a method for determining the mobility of the spinal column using a netw... more In this paper, we present a method for determining the mobility of the spinal column using a network of sensors. The sensors consist of accelerometers and gyroscopes, and mutual communication is accomplished using a I2C bus. The main sensor node collects data from all the sensors and sends them to a computer using Bluetooth communication. The collected data is then filtered and converted to the values of the angles that are of interest to quantify the movement. The experimental part of this work method is applied to determine the range of motion of patients in the Clinical Center in Kragujevac.
Proceedings of the Thirty-Seventh Southeastern Symposium on System Theory, 2005. SSST '05.
Time synchronization is essential for most network applications. It is particularly important in ... more Time synchronization is essential for most network applications. It is particularly important in a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) as a means to correlate diverse measurements from a set of distributed sensor elements and synchronize clocks for shared channel communication protocols. Wireless sensors are typically designed with very stringent constraints for size, cost, and especially power consumption. The Flooding Time Synchronization Protocol (FTSP) was developed explicitly for time synchronization of mesh-connected wireless sensor networks. However, ZigBee can also accommodate master-slave networks that can be more power-efficient. We optimized the FTSP for master-slave WSNs and implemented it using TinyOS 1.1.8 and ZigBee-compliant hardware. Our approach allows better synchronization and reduced power consumption of wireless nodes. In this paper we present implementation and experimental results.
Guest Editorial Introduction to the Special Section on Pervasive Healthcare P ERVASIVE healthcare... more Guest Editorial Introduction to the Special Section on Pervasive Healthcare P ERVASIVE healthcare may be defined from two perspectives: first, as the application of pervasive computing-or ubiquitous computing, proactive computing, ambient intelligence-technologies for healthcare, health, and wellness management; second, as making healthcare available everywhere, anytime-pervasively. Essentially, pervasive healthcare addresses those technologies and concepts that integrate healthcare more seamlessly to our everyday life, wherever we are. Weiser, the father of the ubiquitous computing, stated "the most profound technologies are those that disappear" [1]. Pervasive computing may be considered as the opposite to virtual reality: While in virtual reality the user enters the world created by computers, in pervasive computing, it is the computing that enters the physical world and bridges the gap between the virtual and physical worlds. This bridging is perhaps best described by means of its three most important enabling technologies: ubiquitous computing, ubiquitous communication, and intelligent user-friendly interfaces. Ubiquitous computing refers to the concepts like disappearing computer, "when they are everywhere," and pervasive computing, and means integration of computing power (microprocessors) and sensing (sensors) into anything, including not only traditional computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), printers, etc., but also everyday objects like white goods, toys, houses, furniture, or even paint ("smart dust"). Ubiquitous communication, in turn, means enabling anytime, anywhere communication of anything with anything else, not only people but also artifacts such as those listed above. Central technologies in ubiquitous communication are ad-hoc networking and wireless communication technologies-including low-power low-range communications. Intelligent user-friendly interfaces enable natural interaction and control of the environment by the human "users," or inhabitants of the ambient environment. The interfaces support natural communication (speech, gestures), take into account user preferences, personality, and usage context, and enable multisensory interaction. The envisioned pervasive computing infrastructure, hence, provides a seamless environment of computing, networking, and user interfaces. The infrastructure is aware: It has senses and it has the required intelligence to interpret the sensory information-it is context-aware. The advances in these technologies during the last decade have already changed our daily life in many ways. Today, we are ubiquitously connected to our friends, colleagues, and information sources with our cellular phones. Our digital cameras may
Proceedings of the Thirty-Fourth Southeastern Symposium on System Theory (Cat. No.02EX540)
This paper presents a portable physical rehabilitation monitoring system based on a personal netw... more This paper presents a portable physical rehabilitation monitoring system based on a personal network of intelligent sensors. Rehabilitation is traditionally carried out in hospitals under supervision of qualified personnel. However, significantly better results could be achieved using out-of-hospital portable monitoring to allow patients computer-assisted rehabilitation in their homes. The new generation of personal digital assistants (PDA), such as Compaq iPAQ, offers large processing power, decent graphical user interface, and compact flash based secondary memory. Therefore, they are perfectly suited for portable monitoring units. Individual sensors are positioned on limbs to analyze movements using 2-axis MEMS accelerometers. The system monitors periods and forces of individual sensors, visualizing relevant physiological data in real-time on PDA, and archiving progress data on compact flash. A specialist supervises current advance and sets new optimum rehabilitation modes, thresholds for forces, step periods, etc. The system generates real-time warnings when predefined thresholds have been exceeded. We are developing a system for hip and knee replacement rehabilitation, as well as general physical rehabilitation. Other possible applications of our system include rehabilitation of stroke and heart attack patients.
Abstract—Recent technological advances in sensors, lowpower integrated circuits, and wireless com... more Abstract—Recent technological advances in sensors, lowpower integrated circuits, and wireless communications have enabled the design of low-cost, miniature, lightweight, intelligent physiological sensor platforms that can be seamlessly integrated into a body area network for health monitoring. Wireless body area networks (WBANs) promise unobtrusive ambulatory health monitoring for extended periods of time and near real-time updates of patients ’ medical records through the Internet. A number of innovative systems for health monitoring have recently been proposed. However, they typically rely on custom communication protocols and hardware designs, lacking generality and flexibility. The lack of standard platforms, system software support, and standards makes these systems expensive. Bulky sensors, high price, and frequent battery changes are all likely to limit user compliance. To address some of these challenges, we prototyped a WBAN utilizing a common off-the-shelf wireless sensor ...
— Very slow yogic breathing techniques provide valuable insights into mechanisms of autonomous ne... more — Very slow yogic breathing techniques provide valuable insights into mechanisms of autonomous nervous system regulation that are usually not available for human subjects. This paper presents results of eight sessions of Nadi Shodhana Pranayama practiced at rate of one breath per minute. We characterized statistic and spectral measures of heart rate variability before, during, and after exercises. Significant changes include increase of VLF frequencies caused by slow breathing and decrease in average interbeat interval from 959.3 to 904.1 ms (t(7) =-7.5, p<0.001). We present the results of HRV analysis and analyze origins of characteristic frequency components. The most prominent changes of the exercise include significant increase of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and LF/HF ratio, and decrease of breathing frequency after the exercise against the state before the exercise. The maximum LF frequency decreased from 0.0919 Hz to 0.07125 Hz (t(7) =-3.255, p < 0.01), indicating...
Sleep disorders, such as insomnia can seriously impair a patient’s quality of life. Existing stud... more Sleep disorders, such as insomnia can seriously impair a patient’s quality of life. Existing studies have shown that insomniacs have a risk of hypertension 350 percent higher than normal sleepers. Insomnia is also a risk factor for diabetes, as well as anxiety and depression. Sleep measurements based on polysomnographic (PSG) signals and questionnaires are necessary for an accurate evaluation of insomnia; however PSG systems are uncomfortable and inconvenient as they require patients to stay overnight at sleep centers. There is an increasing interest in portable devices, which provide the opportunity for the assessment of insomnia in a native environment (e.g. patients’ homes). Due to recent advances in technology, it is now possible to continuously monitor a patient’s sleep at home and send their sleep data to a remote clinical back-end system for analysis and reporting. This chapter provides a systematic analysis on the sleep monitoring technologies that can be used for insomnia assessment and treatment. This study highlights the key technical challenges of sleep monitoring, describes different types of technologies and discusses their applications in insomnia assessment. An overview of some model-based signal processing for sleep staging and insomnia detection is presented. Lastly, this chapter ends with a discussion, which provides future directions for the deployment of effective in-home patient monitoring systems for insomnia diagnosis.
Proceedings of the 35th Southeastern Symposium on System Theory, 2003., 2003
Source localization of objects using sound waves and vibrations is very important for many applic... more Source localization of objects using sound waves and vibrations is very important for many applications that range from military to security and home automation systems. Typical applications include tracking a moving object in security systems, where the location of a sound is needed to direct a camera, or selecting the closest microphone to a speaker from a microphone array, as
Page 1. An Implementation of the WBAN Health Monitoring Protocol for ZigBee Compliant TinyOS Mess... more Page 1. An Implementation of the WBAN Health Monitoring Protocol for ZigBee Compliant TinyOS Messaging Chris Otto &amp;amp;amp; Emil Jovanov Electrical and Computer Engineering Dept. University of Alabama in Huntsville Huntsville, Alabama May, 2006 Page 2. ii ...
Evoked response potentials provide insight into spatio-temporal dynamics of brain electrical acti... more Evoked response potentials provide insight into spatio-temporal dynamics of brain electrical activity. The activity is much easier to perceive using an animated 3D visualization. In addition to already established visual and auditory evoked responses, we are using Trivector NeuroScan (TVR) for quantitative analysis of neurological activity as well as a scalar assessment of neurological cognitive deficits without the conscious participation of the subject. In this paper we present the development environment TempoEP for visualization of evoked EEG scalp potentials and animation of the signal sources of evoked response potentials on transparent 3D head model.
This paper presents a research methodology for analysis of stress effects and allostatic load of ... more This paper presents a research methodology for analysis of stress effects and allostatic load of nurses during daily activities. Stress related health issues are particularly critical in healthcare workers, in particular nurses. Typical causes of stress include inadequate staffing of nurses for the number and acuity of patients, dealing with difficult patients and families, and lack of autonomy in care delivery decisions. This is all compounded by lack of recovery time while on shift, variable shifts with limited recovery time between days worked, and fatigue from dealing with difficult patients, families, and healthcare workers. Under unresolved stress, the heart rate and other vital parameters may fail to return to the baseline. This study examined the physiological responses of nurses during care on a high-fidelity patient simulation to develop a research methodology and identify physiological parameters suitable for real-time assessment of allostatic load during work. Our results demonstrated that heart rate and heart rate variability can be reliably measured using wearable sensors to assess allostatic load. During this study and our previous related work, we acquired valuable experience regarding selection and deployment of commercially available sensors, system integration, recruitment of subjects, and general research methodology. The research methodology developed and presented in this paper can be applied to a number of other applications and experimental protocols.
Abstract—This study has investigated whether extremely low frequency (ELF) electromagnetic fields... more Abstract—This study has investigated whether extremely low frequency (ELF) electromagnetic fields (EMFs) can alter human brain activity. Linearly polarised magnetic flux density of 20μT (rms) was generated using a standard double Helmholtz coils and applied to the human head over a sequence of 1 minute stimulations followed by one minute without stimulation in the following order of frequencies 50, 16.66, 13, 10, 8.33 and 4Hz. We collected recordings on 33 human volunteers under double-blind counter-balanced conditions. Each stimulation lasted for two minutes followed by one minute post-stimulation EEG recording. The same procedure was repeated for the EMF control sessions, where the order of control and exposure sessions was determined randomly according to the subject’s ID number. The rest period between two conditions (exposure and control) was 30 minutes. The results indicate that there was a significant increase in Alpha1, Alpha2, and Beta1 at the frontal brain region, and a si...
Proceedings of 17th International Conference of the Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, 1995
... The method is applied in anabsis of brain wave activities during altered state of consciousne... more ... The method is applied in anabsis of brain wave activities during altered state of consciousness related to healing process, in comparison with normal state. We have found the most pro-minent changes at lowerpequencies (delta and theta bands). I. Introduction ...
Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation, 2005
BACKGROUND: Recent technological advances in integrated circuits, wireless communications, and ph... more BACKGROUND: Recent technological advances in integrated circuits, wireless communications, and physiological sensing allow miniature, lightweight, ultra-low power, intelligent monitoring devices. A number of these devices can be integrated into a Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN), a new enabling technology for health monitoring. METHODS: Using off-the-shelf wireless sensors we designed a prototype WBAN which features a standard ZigBee compliant radio and a common set of physiological, kinetic, and environmental sensors. RESULTS: We introduce a multi-tier telemedicine system and describe how we optimized our prototype WBAN implementation for computer-assisted physical rehabilitation applications and ambulatory monitoring. The system performs real-time analysis of sensors' data, provides guidance and feedback to the user, and can generate warnings based on the user's state, level of activity, and environmental conditions. In addition, all recorded information can be transferre...
2005 IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology 27th Annual Conference, 2005
Wireless body area networks (WBANs) and their supporting information infrastructures offer unprec... more Wireless body area networks (WBANs) and their supporting information infrastructures offer unprecedented opportunities to monitor state of health without constraining the activities of a wearer. These mobile point-of-care systems are now realizable due to the convergence of technologies such as low-power wireless communication standards, plug-andplay device buses, off-the-shelf development kits for low-power microcontrollers, handheld computers, electronic medical records, and the Internet. To increase acceptance of personal monitoring technology while lowering equipment cost, advances must be made in interoperability (at both the system and device levels) and security. This paper presents an overview of WBAN infrastructure work in these areas currently underway in the Medical Component Design Laboratory at Kansas State University (KSU) and at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH). KSU efforts include the development of wearable health status monitoring systems that utilize ISO/IEEE 11073, Bluetooth, Health Level 7, and OpenEMed. WBAN efforts at UAH include the development of wearable activity and health monitors that incorporate ZigBee-compliant wireless sensor platforms with hardware-level encryption and the TinyOS development environment. WBAN infrastructures are complex, requiring many functional support elements. To realize these infrastructures through collaborative efforts, organizations such as KSU and UAH must define and utilize standard interfaces, nomenclature, and security approaches.
This paper demonstrates the principle of capacitive sensing in liquid crystal (LC) based sensors ... more This paper demonstrates the principle of capacitive sensing in liquid crystal (LC) based sensors with potential applications to chemical and biological systems. The theory for tracking the average molecular deformation partially disorder LC film via capacitive sensing is investigated. Three capacitance measurements are required to track the average molecular orientation as well as the degree of disorder in the LC film. Sensors' outputs are digitized by involving capacitance to digital converter to be applied to computerized applications. Both the experimental and calculated capacitances of a selected sensor structure are presented.
Proceedings of the Thirty-Seventh Southeastern Symposium on System Theory, 2005. SSST '05.
Wireless sensor networks emerged as a key technology for prolonged, unsupervised monitoring in a ... more Wireless sensor networks emerged as a key technology for prolonged, unsupervised monitoring in a wide spectrum of applications, from biological and environmental to civil and military. The sensor networks should operate autonomously for a long period of time with stringent resource and energy constraints. Energy conservation and power-awareness have become a focus of a number of research efforts, as sensor network nodes must operate on batteries or use energy extracted from the environment, such as solar energy or vibrations. Runtime power measurements and characterization of real existing systems are crucial for studies that target power optimizations, including techniques for dynamic adaptation based on the current energy status. This paper introduces an environment for unobtrusive real-time power monitoring that could be used for a number of wireless sensor platforms. We describe our methodology for calibration and validation of the environment and give empirical data for the Telos wireless sensor platform when it runs a subset of representative applications.
In this paper, we present a method for determining the mobility of the spinal column using a netw... more In this paper, we present a method for determining the mobility of the spinal column using a network of sensors. The sensors consist of accelerometers and gyroscopes, and mutual communication is accomplished using a I2C bus. The main sensor node collects data from all the sensors and sends them to a computer using Bluetooth communication. The collected data is then filtered and converted to the values of the angles that are of interest to quantify the movement. The experimental part of this work method is applied to determine the range of motion of patients in the Clinical Center in Kragujevac.
Proceedings of the Thirty-Seventh Southeastern Symposium on System Theory, 2005. SSST '05.
Time synchronization is essential for most network applications. It is particularly important in ... more Time synchronization is essential for most network applications. It is particularly important in a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) as a means to correlate diverse measurements from a set of distributed sensor elements and synchronize clocks for shared channel communication protocols. Wireless sensors are typically designed with very stringent constraints for size, cost, and especially power consumption. The Flooding Time Synchronization Protocol (FTSP) was developed explicitly for time synchronization of mesh-connected wireless sensor networks. However, ZigBee can also accommodate master-slave networks that can be more power-efficient. We optimized the FTSP for master-slave WSNs and implemented it using TinyOS 1.1.8 and ZigBee-compliant hardware. Our approach allows better synchronization and reduced power consumption of wireless nodes. In this paper we present implementation and experimental results.
Guest Editorial Introduction to the Special Section on Pervasive Healthcare P ERVASIVE healthcare... more Guest Editorial Introduction to the Special Section on Pervasive Healthcare P ERVASIVE healthcare may be defined from two perspectives: first, as the application of pervasive computing-or ubiquitous computing, proactive computing, ambient intelligence-technologies for healthcare, health, and wellness management; second, as making healthcare available everywhere, anytime-pervasively. Essentially, pervasive healthcare addresses those technologies and concepts that integrate healthcare more seamlessly to our everyday life, wherever we are. Weiser, the father of the ubiquitous computing, stated "the most profound technologies are those that disappear" [1]. Pervasive computing may be considered as the opposite to virtual reality: While in virtual reality the user enters the world created by computers, in pervasive computing, it is the computing that enters the physical world and bridges the gap between the virtual and physical worlds. This bridging is perhaps best described by means of its three most important enabling technologies: ubiquitous computing, ubiquitous communication, and intelligent user-friendly interfaces. Ubiquitous computing refers to the concepts like disappearing computer, "when they are everywhere," and pervasive computing, and means integration of computing power (microprocessors) and sensing (sensors) into anything, including not only traditional computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), printers, etc., but also everyday objects like white goods, toys, houses, furniture, or even paint ("smart dust"). Ubiquitous communication, in turn, means enabling anytime, anywhere communication of anything with anything else, not only people but also artifacts such as those listed above. Central technologies in ubiquitous communication are ad-hoc networking and wireless communication technologies-including low-power low-range communications. Intelligent user-friendly interfaces enable natural interaction and control of the environment by the human "users," or inhabitants of the ambient environment. The interfaces support natural communication (speech, gestures), take into account user preferences, personality, and usage context, and enable multisensory interaction. The envisioned pervasive computing infrastructure, hence, provides a seamless environment of computing, networking, and user interfaces. The infrastructure is aware: It has senses and it has the required intelligence to interpret the sensory information-it is context-aware. The advances in these technologies during the last decade have already changed our daily life in many ways. Today, we are ubiquitously connected to our friends, colleagues, and information sources with our cellular phones. Our digital cameras may
Proceedings of the Thirty-Fourth Southeastern Symposium on System Theory (Cat. No.02EX540)
This paper presents a portable physical rehabilitation monitoring system based on a personal netw... more This paper presents a portable physical rehabilitation monitoring system based on a personal network of intelligent sensors. Rehabilitation is traditionally carried out in hospitals under supervision of qualified personnel. However, significantly better results could be achieved using out-of-hospital portable monitoring to allow patients computer-assisted rehabilitation in their homes. The new generation of personal digital assistants (PDA), such as Compaq iPAQ, offers large processing power, decent graphical user interface, and compact flash based secondary memory. Therefore, they are perfectly suited for portable monitoring units. Individual sensors are positioned on limbs to analyze movements using 2-axis MEMS accelerometers. The system monitors periods and forces of individual sensors, visualizing relevant physiological data in real-time on PDA, and archiving progress data on compact flash. A specialist supervises current advance and sets new optimum rehabilitation modes, thresholds for forces, step periods, etc. The system generates real-time warnings when predefined thresholds have been exceeded. We are developing a system for hip and knee replacement rehabilitation, as well as general physical rehabilitation. Other possible applications of our system include rehabilitation of stroke and heart attack patients.
Abstract—Recent technological advances in sensors, lowpower integrated circuits, and wireless com... more Abstract—Recent technological advances in sensors, lowpower integrated circuits, and wireless communications have enabled the design of low-cost, miniature, lightweight, intelligent physiological sensor platforms that can be seamlessly integrated into a body area network for health monitoring. Wireless body area networks (WBANs) promise unobtrusive ambulatory health monitoring for extended periods of time and near real-time updates of patients ’ medical records through the Internet. A number of innovative systems for health monitoring have recently been proposed. However, they typically rely on custom communication protocols and hardware designs, lacking generality and flexibility. The lack of standard platforms, system software support, and standards makes these systems expensive. Bulky sensors, high price, and frequent battery changes are all likely to limit user compliance. To address some of these challenges, we prototyped a WBAN utilizing a common off-the-shelf wireless sensor ...
— Very slow yogic breathing techniques provide valuable insights into mechanisms of autonomous ne... more — Very slow yogic breathing techniques provide valuable insights into mechanisms of autonomous nervous system regulation that are usually not available for human subjects. This paper presents results of eight sessions of Nadi Shodhana Pranayama practiced at rate of one breath per minute. We characterized statistic and spectral measures of heart rate variability before, during, and after exercises. Significant changes include increase of VLF frequencies caused by slow breathing and decrease in average interbeat interval from 959.3 to 904.1 ms (t(7) =-7.5, p<0.001). We present the results of HRV analysis and analyze origins of characteristic frequency components. The most prominent changes of the exercise include significant increase of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and LF/HF ratio, and decrease of breathing frequency after the exercise against the state before the exercise. The maximum LF frequency decreased from 0.0919 Hz to 0.07125 Hz (t(7) =-3.255, p < 0.01), indicating...
Sleep disorders, such as insomnia can seriously impair a patient’s quality of life. Existing stud... more Sleep disorders, such as insomnia can seriously impair a patient’s quality of life. Existing studies have shown that insomniacs have a risk of hypertension 350 percent higher than normal sleepers. Insomnia is also a risk factor for diabetes, as well as anxiety and depression. Sleep measurements based on polysomnographic (PSG) signals and questionnaires are necessary for an accurate evaluation of insomnia; however PSG systems are uncomfortable and inconvenient as they require patients to stay overnight at sleep centers. There is an increasing interest in portable devices, which provide the opportunity for the assessment of insomnia in a native environment (e.g. patients’ homes). Due to recent advances in technology, it is now possible to continuously monitor a patient’s sleep at home and send their sleep data to a remote clinical back-end system for analysis and reporting. This chapter provides a systematic analysis on the sleep monitoring technologies that can be used for insomnia assessment and treatment. This study highlights the key technical challenges of sleep monitoring, describes different types of technologies and discusses their applications in insomnia assessment. An overview of some model-based signal processing for sleep staging and insomnia detection is presented. Lastly, this chapter ends with a discussion, which provides future directions for the deployment of effective in-home patient monitoring systems for insomnia diagnosis.
Proceedings of the 35th Southeastern Symposium on System Theory, 2003., 2003
Source localization of objects using sound waves and vibrations is very important for many applic... more Source localization of objects using sound waves and vibrations is very important for many applications that range from military to security and home automation systems. Typical applications include tracking a moving object in security systems, where the location of a sound is needed to direct a camera, or selecting the closest microphone to a speaker from a microphone array, as
Page 1. An Implementation of the WBAN Health Monitoring Protocol for ZigBee Compliant TinyOS Mess... more Page 1. An Implementation of the WBAN Health Monitoring Protocol for ZigBee Compliant TinyOS Messaging Chris Otto &amp;amp;amp; Emil Jovanov Electrical and Computer Engineering Dept. University of Alabama in Huntsville Huntsville, Alabama May, 2006 Page 2. ii ...
Evoked response potentials provide insight into spatio-temporal dynamics of brain electrical acti... more Evoked response potentials provide insight into spatio-temporal dynamics of brain electrical activity. The activity is much easier to perceive using an animated 3D visualization. In addition to already established visual and auditory evoked responses, we are using Trivector NeuroScan (TVR) for quantitative analysis of neurological activity as well as a scalar assessment of neurological cognitive deficits without the conscious participation of the subject. In this paper we present the development environment TempoEP for visualization of evoked EEG scalp potentials and animation of the signal sources of evoked response potentials on transparent 3D head model.
This paper presents a research methodology for analysis of stress effects and allostatic load of ... more This paper presents a research methodology for analysis of stress effects and allostatic load of nurses during daily activities. Stress related health issues are particularly critical in healthcare workers, in particular nurses. Typical causes of stress include inadequate staffing of nurses for the number and acuity of patients, dealing with difficult patients and families, and lack of autonomy in care delivery decisions. This is all compounded by lack of recovery time while on shift, variable shifts with limited recovery time between days worked, and fatigue from dealing with difficult patients, families, and healthcare workers. Under unresolved stress, the heart rate and other vital parameters may fail to return to the baseline. This study examined the physiological responses of nurses during care on a high-fidelity patient simulation to develop a research methodology and identify physiological parameters suitable for real-time assessment of allostatic load during work. Our results demonstrated that heart rate and heart rate variability can be reliably measured using wearable sensors to assess allostatic load. During this study and our previous related work, we acquired valuable experience regarding selection and deployment of commercially available sensors, system integration, recruitment of subjects, and general research methodology. The research methodology developed and presented in this paper can be applied to a number of other applications and experimental protocols.
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Papers by E. Jovanov