Distributed Computing and Monitoring Technologies for Older Patients

This book summarizes various approaches for the
automatic detection of health threats to older patients at home living alone. The
text begins by briefly describing those who would most benefit from healthcare
supervision. The book then summarizes possible scenarios for monitoring an
older patient at home, deriving the common functional requirements for
monitoring technology. Next, the work identifies the state of the art of
technological monitoring approaches that are practically applicable to geriatric
patients. A survey is presented on a range of such interdisciplinary fields as
smart homes, telemonitoring, ambient intelligence, ambient assisted living,
gerontechnology, and aging-in-place technology. The book discusses relevant
experimental studies, highlighting the application of sensor fusion, signal
processing and machine learning techniques. Finally, the text discusses future
challenges, offering a number of suggestions for further research directions.