Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
INTRODUCTION
E-Healthcare System (CREHS) for detection and
prediction of coming seizures on Epilepsy patients
can offer significant opportunities to reduce the
cost of health care. A CRESH can significantly
reduce the percentage of patients who are now
kept in hospital beds for routine monitoring. A
CREHS will offer the lifestyle that senior citizens
seek by allowing them to lead a near normal life
at home with the protection of a system and a sup-
port network of healthcare professionals keeping
closely monitoring their health. If senior citizens
are given a high quality care through cost-effective
combination of technology and professional health
care, significant savings on the cost to the national
health system can be achieved. Similar to many
other developed nations, Australia begins to invest
in a national broadband network, it is crucial to
consider leveraging such investment for further
reduction in healthcare service delivery to all
Australians. Recent advances in wireless sensor
networking have opened up new opportunities
for innovative solutions for CREHS; it could, for
example be realized by attaching a range of cost-
effective biomedical sensors to body-wearable
sensor nodes that collect and transmit biomedical
data to central processing hardware (CPH). At
a CPH, the data is processed and calibrated to
generate accurate data sets that are continuously
analyzed to detect anomalies that are referred to
a healthcare support network via the home broad-
band connection. This implementation across the
nation could offer opportunities for innovation in
healthcare through new services combining tri-
age nursing; general practice and specialist care
through a hierarchical care network. Broadband
network will permit on-demand video commu-
nication between remotely located healthcare
professionals and patients and allows a network
of family members and healthcare professionals
to play a key role in the management of healthcare
of senior citizens.
In this work, we present the applications,
requirements, solutions, and further research
problems for a Centralized Real-time E-Healthcare
Epilepsy is one of the most common serious neu-
rological disorders, after stroke, affecting about 60
million people worldwide (Zandi, 2010). Accord-
ing to JECA (2009), “10% of Australians will have
a seizure during their lifetime, while 3-4% will
be diagnosed with Epilepsy”. There were about
600,000 - 880,000 Australians experiencing Epi-
lepsy in their life time (Walker, 2007; JECA, 2009).
Patients with Epilepsy suffer recurrent unprovoked
seizures, which are transient neurological events
caused by excessive or hyper synchronous neu-
ronal network activity in the brain. Seizures are
often associated with loss of consciousness which
means that during and following a seizure, the
patients are not physically capable of requesting
help. Seizures carry a significant risk of mortality
and morbidity, and may on occasions be prolonged
and require emergency intervention. One of the
most serious disabilities associated with Epilepsy
is the unpredictability of seizures which can occur
anywhere and anytime. Therefore, it would be
very valuable to have an “at-home” sensor system
to detect seizure occurrences and enable help or
intervention to be sent to the carers. Previous work
by the Royal Melbourne Hospital Epilepsy Group
has demonstrated that the pattern of arm movement
on EEG can used to reliably diagnose epileptic
seizures (Vinton et al, 2004). More recently, a
pilot study undertaken on patients undergoing
inpatient video-Electroencephalography (video-
EEG) monitoring has demonstrated the diagnostic
accuracy and applicability of assessment based on
the pattern of movements recorded with a wrist
strapped accelerometer. Therefore, an obvious
future application of this technology is to be ap-
plied for outpatient (Remote Detection - RMON)
for diagnosis and seizure detection.
The occurrence of Epilepsy increases as people
age which adds to a sharply rising health care
cost for nations (Berg Insight, 2008). Australia
with its ageing population also faces a significant
health care crisis, and a Centralized Real-time
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