Background
An aging population and sedentary lifestyle are laying the foundation for the dominance of chronic diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, hypertension and many more. The rise in the chronic diseases is posing a great challenge over the existing medical facilities and healthcare delivery systems across the world. The enormous strain is even more exerted because of the shortage of the skilled staff, limited health care budgets, inadequate training, and awareness among the practitioners and the population in general. Thus, the above economic, social, and demographic backgrounds constantly lay pressure on the need of the technological advances to combat the healthcare crisis, thereby improvising the quality of the life at affordable prices (Cavallari et. al, 2014). One such technology is body area networking, which refers to the network of various computer devices. The report is intended to explore the various facets of the body area networking technology, on the lines of the use, advantages, and disadvantages.
Body Area Network (BAN) or the Body Sensor Network (BSN) technology is the result of the recent innovations in the field of wireless communication, microelectronics, integrated circuits, and intelligent low-power sensors (Wan et. al, 2013). It is the collection of wireless sensor nodes that possess low power and can be attached to the human body through either the invasive or the non-invasive means. These are used to monitor the human body and the surrounding environment. The nodes connected to the human body are capable of processing and forwarding the collected information to the base computer for further prescription and diagnosis. What sets apart this technology from others is that it aids in the long term monitoring of the patients functions and vitals, in the ordinary physiological state without laying constraint on the daily activities. A BAN node can be planted inside or outside the body, depending upon the kind of the diagnosis desired. Thus, depending upon the location of the device, the node may be called an “In body area network” or “On body area network ” (Chen, 2014).
The BAN sensors or nodes are capable of recording and keeping the historical data of the patient, generate daily tips and advices, assist patients and inform the relative, emergency, or the hospital services if required. The following picture illustrates the architecture of the body area networking technology.
(Source: Ullah et al., 2010)
The nodes connected to the body gather the information and transfer it to a centrally connected computer system. As shown in the picture, these nodes are placed depending upon the location of the sensitive head nerves. The authorised users and the physicians are allowed to make use of the technology, because it further requires the use of the wire bands and transmission services for passing on the data. These nodes are further connected to each other via different network topology.
In terms of the medical diagnosis, the technology is capable of gathering the data with respect to monitoring of respiratory rate, blood pressure, heartbeat, body temperature and more such vitals (Ghamari et. al, 2016). These are further aided with the other devices such as the e cardiac defibrillators, pacemakers, and more such medical devices. The technology is further used for the interactive gaming and military applications apart from the medical diagnosis. In military terms, the technology is used to assess the soldier fatigue rate and battle readiness (Liu et. al, 2013).
Architecture
A wireless healthcare application offers and brings many benefits and challenges to healthcare sector. The Body Area Network technique is used in soldierly for the purpose of safety or protection before hand. These advantages render the convenient atmosphere, which may review the daily routine and medical conditions of patient at anytime, anyplace and without any limits. The major benefit of Body Area Network is that the services in emergency may be taken from the hospitals or doctors. The physical appearance of patient is not essential. This wireless body area network help in establishing the connection between machinery and people. The other benefit is it is very flexible system or technology. In the medical sector, the Body Area Network is cost effective technique.
Another major advantage of the technology is that the tools can be connected to the wireless storage databases such as cloud network (Movassaghi et. al, 2014). This enables the storage of the data gathered on such databases. Accordingly, a repository can be created consisting of the data obtained, and can be used for future research and other related purposes. The data stored on cloud can further be share, and thus providing the benefit of easy sharing and global accessibility as well. Another advantage is that the technology opens the door for the further research in the medical fields by the capacity to generate the real time data in the form of audios and videos as well (Chen et. al, 2011). Thus, it aids the comprehensive medical reassert.
There are various benefits of Body area network and challenges. The Body area network technology is still developing and there are a lot of problems or issue left to resolve. The most significant challenges to this modern technology in healthcare is protection and secrecy difficulties that regularly creates the confidentiality of patient more susceptible (Al Ameen, Liu and Kwak, 2012). The physiological dynamic sign of patients are very complex, particularly if the patients are facing the uneasy sickness. These patients can suffer degradation at least or even psychological upset if their disease data or low Quality of Service were unintentionally connected. Also in some instances, disease information could result to a person losing their job. Occasionally the data can make it difficult for patients to have insurance security.
The medical sensors sense the condition of the body of patients and forward message to doctors or hospital server while transferring this message, the sensor can be criticized. For an example, the challengers can take the information from the wireless channel and change the outcomes. They can later pass confronted information to the doctors or server. It can endanger the patient’s life. With the fact of susceptibility of security of patients, the protection must be supreme in terms of the use of technologies in healthcare settings. The dynamic data of patient must be kept and measured delicate. Any disaster of these kinds of health information of patient can lead to dishonour, incorrect treatment, problems related to relations, or even loss of job. The health information supposed as adverse might also hinder the capacity of person to get health insurance exposure. Due to this, it is significant to ensure that protection of data are placed and transferred strongly.
Advantages of Body Area Network
Moreover, the other challenge is that Body Area Network systems need some safety measures to assure safety, confidentiality, data honesty and secrecy of the health record of patient at all time. The supporting Body Area Network structure should apply particular safety functions that assure these challenges. Security and privacy of patient information are the two crucial features for within every wireless body area network system. Safety suggests information is from illegal operators when being shifted, composed, treated, and remains securely restored. Instead of this, it is suggested by the privacy that authorities should manage and collecting personal data. For an example, the patients can need information to not be transferred among insurance agencies who may use this data to confine their from treatment. As per the other example, when stalkers access data or information, by bodily taking the node and alter data and consequently, false information or data would be passed to the doctor that can result in the death of patients. Somebody may use the medical data of individual to look for the private competitions with the patients.
Conclusion
As per the discussions conducted in the previous parts, it can be stated that medical and healthcare sector is constantly faced with the challenges of increasing aging population and sedentary lifestyle leading to a number of diseases. Body Area Network is a significant technology in terms of the monitoring of the changes in the body and thus assisting in the diagnosis, prescription, and cure of the diseases. The technology is also been used in various other sectors to track the movements and changes within and outside the body of the individuals. The architecture as explained in the above parts explains how the nodes are connected to the human body and organs. These nodes are further connected to a centralised computer that processed the information gathered and assists the practitioners to gain meaningful insights. The report also states the various advantages and disadvantages of the technology. Thus, it can be stated that every technology possess some advantages as well as some challenges. In order to successfully implement a technology, both the aspects must be considered beforehand.
References
Al Ameen, M., Liu, J. and Kwak, K., 2012. Security and privacy issues in wireless sensor networks for healthcare applications. Journal of medical systems, 36(1), pp.93-101.
Cavallari, R., Martelli, F., Rosini, R., Buratti, C. and Verdone, R. (2014) A survey on wireless body area networks: Technologies and design challenges. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 16(3), pp. 1635-1657.
Chen, M. (2014) NDNC-BAN: supporting rich media healthcare services via named data networking in cloud-assisted wireless body area networks. Information Sciences, 284, pp.142-156.
Chen, M., Gonzalez, S., Vasilakos, A., Cao, H. and Leung, V. C. (2011) Body area networks: A survey. Mobile networks and applications, 16(2), pp. 171-193.
Ghamari, M., Janko, B., Sherratt, R., Harwin, W., Piechockic, R. and Soltanpur, C. (2016) A survey on wireless body area networks for ehealthcare systems in residential environments. Sensors, 16(6).
Liu, J., Wang, Q., Wan, J., Xiong, J. and Zeng, B. (2013) Towards Key Issues of Disaster Aid based on Wireless Body Area Networks. KSII Transactions on Internet & Information Systems, 7(5).
Movassaghi, S., Abolhasan, M., Lipman, J., Smith, D. and Jamalipour, A. (2014) Wireless body area networks: A survey. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 16(3), pp. 1658-1686.
Ullah, S., Higgins, H., Braem, B., Latre, B., Blondia, C., Moerman, I., Saleem, S., Rahman, Z. and Kwak, K. (2010). A Comprehensive Survey of Wireless Body Area Networks. Journal of Medical Systems, 36(3), pp. 1065-1094.
Wan, J., Zou, C., Ullah, S., Lai, C.F., Zhou, M. and Wang, X. (2013) Cloud-enabled wireless body area networks for pervasive healthcare. IEEE Network, 27(5), pp. 56-61.
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