Carlos Eduardo Tavares

Bourke AK, Prescher S, Koehler F, Cionca V, Tavares C, Gomis S, Garcia V, Nelson J.  2012.  Embedded fall and activity monitoring for a wearable ambient assisted living solution for older adults. Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2012 Annual International Conference of the IEEE. :248–251. Abstract

With the rapidly increasing over 60 and over 80 age groups in society, greater emphasis will be put on technology to detect emergency situations, such as falls, in order to promote independent living. This paper describes the development and deployment of fall-detection, activity classification and energy expenditure algorithms, deployed in a tele-monitoring system. These algorithms were successfully tested in an end-user trial involving 9 elderly volunteers using the system for 28 days.

van de Ven P, Bourke A, Tavares C, Feld R, Nelson J, Rocha A, Laighin GO.  2009.  Integration of a suite of sensors in a wireless health sensor platform. Sensors, 2009 IEEE. :1678–1683. Abstractintegration_of_a_suite_of_sensors_in_a_wireless_health_sensor_platform.pdf

In this paper we discuss the development and clinical evaluation of a wireless platform for health signs sensing. The sensors measure physical activity, ECG, blood oxygen saturation, temperature and respiratory rate. An important aspect of the approach is that the sensors are integrated into one waist-worn device. A mobile phone collects data from this device and uses data fusion in the scope of a decision support system to trigger additional measurements, classify health conditions or schedule future observations. In these decisions, the user’s current physical activity plays an important role as the validity of many health signs measurements is strongly related to physical activity. Due to the integration of the sensors and the use of data fusion it is possible to accurately identify health risks and to react promptly. During clinical trials, for which proper ethical approval was obtained, the system was used by healthy elderly volunteers in Limerick (Ireland) and Ancona (Italy). Results of these trials are also discussed in this paper.

Boulos MNK, Wheeler S, Tavares C, Jones R.  2011.  How smartphones are changing the face of mobile and participatory healthcare: an overview, with example from eCAALYX. Biomedical Engineering Online. 10:24. Abstracthow_smartphones_are_changing.pdf

The latest generation of smartphones are increasingly viewed as handheld computers rather than as phones, due to their powerful on-board computing capability, capacious memories, large screens and open operating systems that encourage application development. This paper provides a brief state-of-the-art overview of health and healthcare smartphone apps (applications) on the market today, including emerging trends and market uptake. Platforms available today include Android, Apple iOS, RIM BlackBerry, Symbian, and Windows (Windows Mobile 6.x and the emerging Windows Phone 7 platform). The paper covers apps targeting both laypersons/patients and healthcare professionals in various scenarios, e.g., health, fitness and lifestyle education and management apps; ambient assisted living apps; continuing professional education tools; and apps for public health surveillance. Among the surveyed apps are those assisting in chronic disease management, whether as standalone apps or part of a BAN (Body Area Network) and remote server configuration. We describe in detail the development of a smartphone app within eCAALYX (Enhanced Complete Ambient Assisted Living Experiment, 2009- 2012), an EU-funded project for older people with multiple chronic conditions. The eCAALYX Android smartphone app receives input from a BAN (a patient-wearable smart garment with wireless health sensors) and the GPS (Global Positioning System) location sensor in the smartphone, and communicates over the Internet with a remote server accessible by healthcare professionals who are in charge of the remote monitoring and management of the older patient with multiple chronic conditions. Finally, we briefly discuss barriers to adoption of health and healthcare smartphone apps (e.g., cost, network bandwidth and battery power efficiency, usability, privacy issues, etc.), as well as some workarounds to mitigate those barriers.

Short Bio

Carlos Tavares obtained an MSc degree in Informatics Engineering from Faculty of Engineering of University of Porto, in 2008. During the last few years, he has been working both for industry and research, in several different areas such as Ambient Assisted Living, Power Systems reliability and Digital Video. 

Position: 
PhD Student