**7. Conclusion**

review. There are a lack of published papers in the years 2001 and 2003, as is shown in Figure

**Figure 11.** ICNIRP reference levels and the lower limit at working frequency of social alarm devices (869.21 MHz)

The research performed for this chapter clearly demonstrates the high number of publications on technology assessments. However, despite the large number of studies found, there is a lack of publications evaluating effectiveness of SRD and most of the studies only cover technological assessment issues as can be observed in Figure 7. The absence of homogeneous criteria among authors to choose keywords to describe their papers may have an undesirable consequence: an indeterminate number of papers may have been omitted by search engines. After reviewing the works it can be stated that wireless sensor nodes will play a key role in enabling the ubiquitous and proactive health monitoring and health care services of the future. To achieve the small form factors required, the reduction of node power consumption eliminates the need for large batteries and increases the energy autonomy of the node, hence reducing the amount of maintenance required. In this work several short range technologies

Future SRD and wireless sensor network applications in the health care domain are likely to require an even greater amount of data derived from a multitude of different sensors. The algorithms employed within these applications will become computationally more complex, resulting in a higher processing effort. Also, depending on the use of case scenarios, multi‐ sensory applications put higher demands on radio transmission. At the same time, the new care environments should operate on very small energy budgets, occasioanly using energy

6. Most of the papers included only partially cover the subject matter.

158 Telemedicine

for biomedical monitoring have been described in detail.

On the whole, this chapter presents an overview of the current literature regarding the ratio of penetration as well as their real effectiveness. It provides physicists, patients and healthcare providers with information about parameters, effectiveness and the safety of SRD related to healthcare applications. The subject's content provides useful data for technology implement‐ ers in this growing field of AAL. Pervasive healthcare has been widely approved to be the next generation form of healthcare, in which distributed, patient-centric and self-managed care is emphasized compared to the more traditional hospitalized, staff-centric and professional managed care. The integration of SRD with other pervasive computing technologies such as communications protocols and wireless sensor networks is leading to further innovative applications in the telemedicine area, particularly for ubiquitous persistent monitoring of elderly or disabled people, as well as for patient follow-up during the rehabilitation phase where self-management of medication is prevalent. In recent years, many efforts have been made to develop contactless, portable sensors for continuous vital signs monitoring. But as of now, there are no standards for the system's size, architecture or performance.

**Acknowledgements**

in any way.

**Author details**

**References**

Silvia de Miguel-Bilbao1

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, Jorge García1

1 Health Institute Carlos III, Telemedicine and e-Health Research Unit, Spain

2 Agency Laín Entralgo for Education and Health Research, Madrid, Spain

Financial support of this research was partially provided by the research grant DGPY 1301/08. Authors want to thank the valuable cooperation offered by the General Direction of Telecom‐ munications and Information Technologies, Electromagnetic Compatibility Services, Madrid, and without which, the work carried out in sections 4.b and 5.b would not have been possible

Short Range Technologies for Ambient Assisted Living Systems in Telemedicine: New Healthcare Environments

, M. Dolores Marcos2

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and Victoria Ramos1

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161

Poor compliance for treatment, rehabilitation protocols and medication has become a wellknown problem all over the world and causes worsening of disease, death and an increase in healthcare costs. In this context, AAL offers new possibilities to support outpatients in their daily routine to allow an independent and safe lifestyle without caregivers. The objects are capable of identifying, locating, sensing and connecting, and thus can lead to new forms of communication between people and things and things themselves. The development of real smart objects should be the next step, including ingestible or subcutaneous sensor tags.

These functional advantages can be overshadowed if the exposure thresholds are exceeded or if the use of SRD causes malfunction in other medical devices.

Given the increasing use of domiciliary telealarm devices, and the non-existence of previous studies about the working conditions and the emission levels, this paper analyzes two of the aspects that have to be considered to assure a proper, reliable and safe usage of social alarm devices operating at 869.21 MHz. The first is the compatibility with other communication networks and implanted electric devices. The second is the compliance with exposure levels threshold, to quantify and analyze the risk of exposure caused by the use of these devices.

After selecting the most widely used model devices, the emission levels were measured, saved, processed and analyzed to compare them with the existing standards. The obtained results show that electric field strength levels and the EIRP in healthcare home environments are apparently safe in terms of risk of exposure and EM compatibility.

The presented study provides a global, immediate and accurate vision that can help to avoid EM interferences, and monitor the exposure to EM fields of people using and in the proximity of social alarm devices in home environments.

New health solutions based on any kind of Short Range Technology must consider the issues of electromagnetic compatibility and regulatory compliance. Currently, the degree and type of EMF exposure need to be characterized in household settings, in order to ensure that applications operate properly and exposure guidelines are not exceeded.
