Australian-developed technology may soon lead to more people receiving vital health care in the comfort of their own home.
The CSIRO's Telecare Project relies on sensors similar to those used in car airbags for monitoring a patient's movements.
Patients wear a small portable device which would be monitored by health professionals at a remote location as part of the Home Telecare Project.
Designed to help care for those susceptible to falls, such as the elderly, stroke victims and people suffering from chronic illnesses, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is focusing on the development of a wireless fall-monitoring system.
Sensors, set up to monitor movement in the same way that movement triggers airbags in cars, will help identify cardiovascular conditions that can only be diagnosed at the time of a fall.
The data is recorded by a personal computer in the patient's home and uploaded to a remote assessment location, such as a home care nursing centre, via the telephone network.
"It's all about diagnosing the cause of the fall," Dr Robert Gill of CSIRO told ZDNet.
"If you don't know what happened then you can't begin to do anything about the cause."
From the data, medical staff will be able to determine whether a patient simply tripped over falling forward, fainted and therefore buckled at the knees or suffered a stroke to a particular side of the body which resulted in them falling sideways, according to Gill.
"It will help us determine the cause [of the fall] and in some patients at least allow it to be treated," Gill said.
The sensors embedded in the portable device also measure general activity such as the amount of time a patient spends walking and sitting down - thus alerting medical staff to a patient who is less active than usual and perhaps requiring attention.
The CSIRO is currently working with the first prototype, which is currently being trialed by four patients at Sydney's Ryde Hospital.
It is hoped that the future will see sensors developed to measure things such as blood glucose levels in diabetics without the need to take a blood sample.
"We clearly need to work with doctors and home nursing organisations to identify groups of patients who could benefit from this," Gill said.
However, it will be some time before a system like this is ready to be deployed on a large scale, Gill added.
"There are always issues of new technologies on the horizon and which particular approach will be right in the long run," he said.
The CSIRO expects some trials to continue for over a year with widespread use of the devices in about two years.
