A story in Sunday's New York Times about wireless devices that can help detect blows to the head in athletes is bringing fresh attention to the issue of sports-related concussions and how digital health technology can help better monitor and treat head injuries. It also is reaffirming the fact that body-worn sensors are not meant to be substitutes for expert medical care.
As Cambridge, Mass.-...
The Federal Communications Commission has finalized its rule on medical body-area networks (MBANs), officially allocating a portion of the wireless spectrum to wearable sensors.
Bloomberg BNA's Health IT Law & Industry Report says that the action makes the U.S. the first country in the world to open up spectrum to networks of wireless medical sensors, though MBANs will be the secondary user...
In five years the number of wearable wireless health and fitness devices will hit 169.5 million, according to a report from ABI Research. That's up from almost 21 million such devices last year. By 2017 the number of sports and fitness focused wearable wireless devices will still outnumber more health-focused ones, but not by much. ABI expects about 90 million wearable fitness devices to be in...
The potential of mobile healthcare has been well documented, but the growth may be coming from some unexpected quarters.
It's not only highly industrialized countries that are feeling the effects of aging populations and chronic diseases and it's not just sick people who are looking to mobility to improve health conditions, according to a newly published GigaOM Pro report, "Future of Mobile...
At the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society event in Minneapolis this week, Qualcomm presented a new algorithm that it says lowers the power of body area networks (BANs). According to a report from EETimes, the presentation attracted the attention of implantable device maker Medtronic's representatives who were in attendance at the event.
"The sensing of vital signs is still an open...
Thanks to a $1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, University of Southern California researchers have developed a wireless body area network (BAN) that they plan to leverage to help overweight and obese teenagers adhere to their daily fitness regimens.
The USC team's BAN consists of an accelerometer, heart rate monitor, GPS device and a sensor that measures electrical...
During a presentation here at BodyNets in Los Angeles, Leif Hanlen from NICTA presented one solution for securing the information collected by wireless sensors in a Body Area Network (BAN) and argued that not all BAN services will require the same level of security.
Hanlen began his presentation by sharing some details of the IEEE working group that is creating the Body Area Networks profile: 802...
Few would disagree that in the coming years biometric sensors and biosensors combined with body area networks will create a host of new applications and services that will lead to more effective remote monitoring. Those sensors aren't for everyone, however. Premature infants, for example, have very sensitive, fragile skin, which makes attaching sensors a painful experience. GE Global Research...
