**Acknowledgements**

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

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

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

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

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

now, there are no standards for the system's size, architecture or performance.

if the use of SRD causes malfunction in other medical devices.

160 Telemedicine

apparently safe in terms of risk of exposure and EM compatibility.

applications operate properly and exposure guidelines are not exceeded.

of social alarm devices in home environments.

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 in any way.
