What is the value of vital signs monitoring equipment in a home environment?

As smart homes continue to develop in depth and breadth, people are paying more and more attention to human safety and health. The assessment of safety and health status is achieved by collecting and analyzing vital sign monitoring data.

Vital signs is a medical term, which refers to the indications that can reflect the basic state of life activities, mainly including heartbeat, breathing, blood pressure, and body temperature. To accurately obtain these data, you need to use some special equipment, such as a sphygmomanometer or a thermometer. For patients, the reliability of the data is required to be high. In order to obtain the data, patients may have to sacrifice some personal freedom or comfort. However, in a home environment, most people are healthy or sub-healthy. Even though the current non-contact and non-sensing detection technology has been greatly developed, and the cost price has reached a level acceptable to mass consumption, that is to say, when there are no obvious obstacles to convenience, comfort and economy, the value of monitoring the vital signs of ordinary people has always been controversial. Some people think it is of great significance, while others think it is a pseudo-demand. The following is an analysis of several prominent controversies.

1. Accuracy and availability of household human monitoring data

Home vital signs monitoring equipment can be roughly divided into three categories: medical devices, wearable devices, and non-contact vital signs detection equipment.

1. Medical devices

Medical devices are products that have been tested and approved by standardized testing institutions and clinical trial institutions and have obtained registration certificates issued by government administrative departments, such as blood pressure monitors and thermometers. As long as these devices are used properly, the data collected is recognized by the medical department. In a home environment, these devices are mostly used for the management of chronic diseases.

It should be noted that the medical sector's recognition of medical device data is also constantly evolving. For example, in the early days, doctors did not recognize electronic sphygmomanometers or electronic thermometers. They believed in traditional mercury sphygmomanometers or mercury thermometers. Now, electronic sphygmomanometers or electronic thermometers have long become mainstream.

In addition, since medical devices are used for personal use at home, improper use or long-term non-calibration of the equipment may also lead to a decline in data quality.

2. Wearable devices

With the development of mobile Internet and the health industry, wearable vital signs devices such as smart watches, smart bracelets, and smart underwear are also being adopted by more and more people. Neither the US FDA nor the Chinese SFDA has mandatory requirements for such products, and the overall policy is showing a trend of relaxation. Although the data accuracy of some products has reached or is close to the standards of medical devices, most medical departments take a relatively cautious attitude. The value of data can be used for auxiliary analysis, but is less used for disease diagnosis.

Wearable devices are relatively convenient, but they are different from traditional life. For example, they need to be charged, connected to the Internet, use mobile phone apps, and are not convenient to wear in certain scenarios (such as bathing and sleeping). There is also the problem of low stickiness. Many people should have used more than one smart bracelet, and most likely they will be abandoned after the novelty wears off. For the elderly, there is also a threshold for the use of wearable devices. The proportion of wearable devices given to the elderly by the community or their children who can be used persistently is very low.

3. Non-contact vital signs detection equipment

Non-contact vital sign detection equipment is a rising star in the field of vital sign detection. The typical representative is the millimeter wave bio-radar, which is more suitable for the detection of vital signs in home scenes. Its outstanding advantages are non-contact and non-sensing detection, low-load continuous long-term detection, and no need for users to do any operation.

Unlike wearable devices that detect electrical, chemical, and optical signals from the human body, non-contact devices mainly detect micro-motion signals from the human body, such as cardiac shock waves and respiratory waves. Non-contact body temperature monitoring equipment detects thermal radiation signals from the human body.

The accuracy of non-contact vital sign detection data in a quiet state can reach or approach that of medical-grade products. Currently, it is also used as a reference in the medical sector, and has been widely adopted in non-medical sectors.

2. The medical value of home vital sign monitoring data

The main function of clinical medicine is to diagnose and treat diseases, so the accuracy and stability of test data are very high. With the transformation of the medical model and the rise of the big health industry, the boundaries between medical care and health care are becoming blurred, and medical services are constantly extending to communities and families. In this context, relying solely on diagnostic-grade medical equipment for testing is no longer sufficient to provide diverse data support, and data collected by other home vital sign detection equipment has begun to become an important data supplement. These data, with their advantages of large volume, continuity, multi-dimensionality and low cost, play an increasingly important role in disease auxiliary diagnosis and resident health management.

It is undeniable that there is still a big gap between home vital signs detection and clinical diagnostic equipment in terms of data specialization and reliability, and it is even more difficult to be trusted for the diagnosis of acute and severe diseases. However, as a daily monitoring tool for patients with mild symptoms or sub-healthy people, its medical value is certain.

The medical value of home vital sign testing data is more reflected in big data. Since clinical examinations are limited by time, location, and cost, it is difficult to achieve long-term continuous monitoring, resulting in some feature information not being collected and analyzed. With home testing, users are more relaxed, and features that were not discovered during clinical examinations may be captured in continuous home testing. Moreover, the collection and preservation of continuous data is very beneficial for analyzing the evolution trend of a user's disease or health status, and can even be used to assess the risk of a user developing an acute or severe illness and recommend early medical intervention.

In actual use, the medical value of home vital sign detection data is the most controversial. Many people tend to be idealistic or extreme in this regard, which is manifested in that they regard wearable or contactless devices as clinical diagnostic equipment, and even hope that if an acute or severe disease (such as cardiovascular and cerebrovascular accidents) occurs in a home environment, these devices can quickly detect abnormalities or even alarm. Otherwise, they think the product has no value. In fact, these requirements go beyond the intended use of home detection equipment. The value of home vital sign detection data is not mainly in the detection and alarm of acute and severe diseases, but more in chronic disease management and health improvement.

(Non-contact bio-radar installed at the bedside of the Fangcang Hospital)

III. The sociological value of home vital sign monitoring data

Home vital signs monitoring data has many values ​​and can be said to involve all areas related to quality of life and is by no means limited to medical use.

1. Home care

Home-based elderly care is the main form of social elderly care, accounting for about 95%. The significant difference between modern home-based elderly care and traditional home-based elderly care is that socialized and professional services are extended to the family. With the rapid increase in the number of elderly people with low birth rates, living alone, and empty nesters, home-based elderly care urgently needs the support of information and intelligent technologies. Through physical sign detection, we can understand the daily life of the elderly, family members can care for them remotely, and early warnings can be issued when abnormalities occur. Mastering the basic situation of the elderly at home can reduce the blindness of services, significantly improve the utilization efficiency of social resources, reduce costs, and enhance the happiness of the elderly.

2. Improved sleep

Sleep improvement is not only a necessity for people with sleep disorders, but also has significant value for people with normal sleep. There is still a lot of room for improvement in human sleep efficiency. Through sleep monitoring and sleep intervention, we can optimize sleep structure, increase the proportion of deep sleep, and move towards shortening sleep time and improving sleep quality. The basis of all this is the detection of vital signs during sleep.

3. Biometrics

Vital signs are weak signals with certain specificity. Through non-contact vital sign signal detection, it is possible to confirm whether there is someone in the space and understand the person's life status, including heart rate, breathing rate, quietness or agitation, emotional stress, etc. These characteristics are of clear value for smart homes, energy saving, attendance, and subject status assessment.