About Healthwear
Contemporary advancements in e-textile and mobile telecommunications technologies
have opened ways for the development of new services with applications
in health-care. The shirt, sweater, coat can be a computing devise. One would
imagine clothes to aid people with kinetic problems or coats retaining
constant temperature under varying climatic conditions or even shirts monitoring
physiological indicators of individuals with chronic diseases. The range of
related applications may include as well persons in perfect health condition
who nevertheless require some kind of pre-emptive monitoring. An army commander
will be able to monitor a platoon clad in smart-shirts. Also consider the
impact to athletes. Bicyclers and long-distance runners loose substantial
amounts of body fluids during the race without knowing so. Wearing a smart
racing suit the support staff would notify the athlete about upcoming dehydration
by monitoring her temperature and order her to drink replacement fluids.
Schematic representation of HealthWear at work: measurements from the e-textile
are transmitted to the diagnostic center for processing. If malfunction is
detected the medical staff is notified by an alarm.
HealthWear is a collaborative project funded by the Directorate General Information
Society of the European Commission with the aim to deliver a service that
provides uninterrupted and ubiquitous monitoring of the health condition of
individuals in rehabilitation phase. To this purpose HealthWear consortium
will validate the performance of several use-cases, involving volunteers with
COPD and heart diseases.
