User Feedback System for Emergency Alarms in Mobile Health Networks

Abstract

Activity Recognition (AR), Internet of Things (IoT), and speech recognition are emerging technologies in the context of wearable devices and Mobile health (mHealth) networks. Applications of mHealth sensors on human bodies can involve the measurement of physiological data, and may be utilized to initiate an alarm in an emergency health situation. AR devices such as accelerometers may also be used for a similar application in determining the activity and posture status of the user. However, there is always the possibility of false alarms, and to avoid these occurrences, we propose a user feedback system for alarm confirmation via a smart device. As users may be unable to physically respond in some situations, such as a state of immobility from injury, this paper proposes to improve the user feedback system with a voice confirmation functionality utilizing speech recognition embedded within smart devices. The potentials of this user feedback system in mHealth can not only contribute towards improve the alarm accuracy, but may reduce the occurrence of false alarms. Its functionality can also be enhanced via real-time communication with their health service provider who can assess the user health status with the data from the sensors.