Abstract:

As people around the world became more and more health conscious the concept of telemedicine underwent maturation through last decade as numerous applications of wearable systems in physical medicine and rehabilitation emerged in the recent past. The currently available commercial products are wearable heart monitors (wrist bands, watches), patient data recorders (PDAs, Tablet PCs) and patient identifiers. Most of these applications are useful in time saving, education and are helpful in administrative tasks. They generally record patient data and in some cases raise an alarm. Depending on their size they are often portable as well. If industry interests and patient & doctor needs & demands are anything to go by the future outlook for wearable computing is extremely strong. Notwithstanding the clinical trials and proposed theories the market of wearable health is only at an early stage. The goal of this paper is to explore some of the research, development and regulatory challenges and opportunities (design issues) of m- Health as conceptualized and emphasized in the literature reviewed.