Philips Research Press Release

Philips demonstrates new Personal Healthcare techniques

Aachen, Germany -- Scientists at Philips are currently investigating a range of Personal Healthcare (PHC) solutions for measuring medically-relevant parameters outside the hospital with minimal impact on a patient’s quality of life. The solutions rely on “invisible” Ambient Health Sensors integrated into someone’s life, e.g. a chair or a personal health area to continuously monitor medical condition and fitness.

PHC applications are currently limited by a lack of suitable sensors since, mainly from ease-of-use and cost standpoints, commercially available clinical-standard sensors are not ideally suited for personal use. They are also hindered by the challenge of bringing sensors into a patient’s daily life, e.g. into clothes or furniture, and by the ill-defined measurement conditions.

Philips has recently demonstrated the possibilities of using these solutions in a chair with integrated intelligent electronics that automatically detects the heart rate. The person needs no additional body-worn devices and only has to sit in the chair and to be at rest for a while to produce a stable reading. The electronics in the chair detects the heart rate and transmits this health information via a Bluetooth-link to a user interface. The measurement is unobtrusive and safe and, moreover, exemplifies the design guideline in sensor research for PHC applications, i.e. to gather medically-relevant parameters with a minimal impact on a person’s quality of life

The researchers have also developed a cuff-less blood pressure measuring technique that determines the blood pressure in a comfortable way. This involves a sophisticated combination of sensors and new data extraction techniques to enable blood pressure readings after taking into account personalized characteristics of the user.

The research by Philips is being conducted in collaboration with the Philips Chair of Biomedical Technology at the Aachen University of Technology, the University Hospital Aachen and Philips Medical Systems. It is a complementary activity to the European MyHeart (http://www.research.philips.com/
newscenter/archive/2004/041209-myheart.html) project under Philips leadership.

High-resolution pictures are available from:
http://www.research.philips.com/newscenter/misc/aachen/
images/ambient-health-sensors.jpg

For further information please contact:
 

Ellen de Vries
Philips Research
Tel.: +31 40 27 42321
Mobile: +31 6 53243037
Email: ellen.de.vries@philips.com