scholarly journals Insole-Based Systems for Health Monitoring: Current Solutions and Research Challenges

Sensors ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 438
Author(s):  
Sophini Subramaniam ◽  
Sumit Majumder ◽  
Abu Ilius Faisal ◽  
M. Jamal Deen
Keyword(s):  
Health Monitoring ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Physiological Data ◽  
Fully Integrated ◽  
Power Efficient ◽  
Gait Characteristics ◽  
Plantar Aspect ◽  
Holistic Understanding ◽  
Future Work ◽  
Health And Well Being

Wearable health monitoring devices allow for measuring physiological parameters without restricting individuals’ daily activities, providing information that is reflective of an individual’s health and well-being. However, these systems need to be accurate, power-efficient, unobtrusive and simple to use to enable a reliable, convenient, automatic and ubiquitous means of long-term health monitoring. One such system can be embedded in an insole to obtain physiological data from the plantar aspect of the foot that can be analyzed to gain insight into an individual’s health. This manuscript provides a comprehensive review of insole-based sensor systems that measure a variety of parameters useful for overall health monitoring, with a focus on insole-based PPD measurement systems developed in recent years. Existing solutions are reviewed, and several open issues are presented and discussed. The concept of a fully integrated insole-based health monitoring system and considerations for future work are described. By developing a system that is capable of measuring parameters such as PPD, gait characteristics, foot temperature and heart rate, a holistic understanding of an individual’s health and well-being can be obtained without interrupting day-to-day activities. The proposed device can have a multitude of applications, such as for pathology detection, tracking medical conditions and analyzing gait characteristics.

scholarly journals Advancing the Study of Resilience to Daily Stressors

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Ong ◽  
Kate Leger
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Daily Stressors ◽  
Potentially Traumatic Events ◽  
Health Related ◽  
Multiple Levels ◽  
Natural Settings ◽  
Adult Resilience ◽  
Future Work ◽  
Intensive Sampling ◽  
Health And Well Being

Historically, studies of childhood and adult resilience have typically focused on adaptation to chronic life adversities, such as poverty and maltreatment, or isolated and potentially traumatic events, such bereavement and serious illness. Here, we present a complementary view, suggesting that stressors experienced in daily life may also forecast individual health and well-being. We argue that daily process approaches that incorporate intensive sampling of individuals in natural settings can provide powerful insights into unfolding adaptational processes. In making this argument, we review studies that link within-person dynamics with diverse health-related phenomena. Findings from this research provide support for a multiple-levels-analysis perspective that embraces greater unity in pivotal resilience constructs invoked across childhood and adult literatures. Drawing on insights and principles derived from life-span theory, we conclude by outlining promising directions for future work and considering their broader implications for the field of resilience.

scholarly journals Translating performative mediated art into virtual reality: A case study

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-65
Author(s):  
Matthew Sansom ◽  
Zi Siang See
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Spoken Word ◽  
Specific Content ◽  
Everyday Activities ◽  
Audio Video ◽  
Future Work ◽  
Health And Well Being

Park benches are distinctive public spaces that invite a temporary pause for thought and time out from everyday activities and worldly preoccupations. Park Bench Sojourn is a multimodal arts project that explores the uniqueness and universality of these spaces and the kinds of experiences they foster. It asks what it means to be human; surrounded, as we are, by computer technologies and digital media, living lives that are perpetually ‘connected’ and dispersed through the cloud. It reflects on how our technologically determined lives and lifestyles conspire against us to find opportunities to stop, reflect and be witnesses to lived experience. It is a conceptually playful creative work that shares concerns for health and well-being arising from the contemporary mindfulness movement and the traditional practices and worldviews upon which mindfulness draws. The project is based around a range of experiential sojourns, which require participants to find a bench to sit on and then take a sojourn, or a number of sojourns from the project’s website, which may include audio, video, spoken word, or just listening. Other iterations of the project have included a multimedia gallery installation juxtaposing content from a variety of sojourns. Regardless of the format, context or specific content, the project explores ways in which we ‘perform’ ourselves and mediate experience via digital technologies. In this article, we describe the process of translating this mediated and performative artwork into a VR prototype and directions for future work.

scholarly journals Bringing Fronts Back: A Research Agenda to Investigate the Health and Well-Being Impacts of Front Gardens

Challenges ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauriane Suyin Chalmin-Pui ◽  
Alistair Griffiths ◽  
Jenny J. Roe ◽  
Ross W. F. Cameron
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Green Infrastructure ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Central Research ◽  
Health Issues ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Intervention Trials ◽  
Future Work ◽  
Health And Well Being

This perspective article proposes an agenda to investigate the impacts of front gardens (yards) on health and well-being. As front gardens are increasingly being paved over, significant ecological benefits will be lost. In addition, urban green infrastructure has a measurable role to play in addressing major public health issues related to mental health, chronic stress, inflammatory, and cardiovascular diseases. The social value of front gardens remains un-quantified. Future research can contribute to assessing the psycho-socio-cultural value of front gardens, and fostering healthy environments for people to live, work, and play in. A better understanding of the health impacts of front gardens can provide a relatable argument to protect permeable surfaces and spaces for nature, as well as to discourage the general public from paving over their front gardens. We propose eight central research questions to be addressed in future work, and elaborate on further variables, lines of inquiry, and suggested intervention trials and observational studies. Potential research findings will have implications for decision-making in fields of horticulture, landscape architecture, urban planning, and public health.

Work–Family Intervention Research

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leslie B. Hammer ◽  
Caitlin A. Demsky ◽  
Ellen Ernst Kossek ◽  
Jeremy W. Bray
Keyword(s):  
Family Intervention ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Intervention Research ◽  
Work Family Conflict ◽  
Family Interventions ◽  
Work Redesign ◽  
Work Arrangements ◽  
Work Family ◽  
Future Work ◽  
Health And Well Being

This chapter reviews the literature on work–family interventions focusing on linkages to evidence-based employee health and well-being outcomes and on return on investment (ROI) in organizations. Work–family interventions include, but are not limited to, alternative work arrangements, family supportive supervisor behavior training, work redesign to increase schedule control, and the provision of dependent care supports. Work–family interventions have the goal of reducing work–family conflict and in turn increasing the health and well-being of employees and the organizations in which they work (Kossek, Hammer, Kelly, and Moen, 2014). Sixteen studies were identified that meet our criteria. The chapter provides a discussion of establishing the work–family intervention value proposition with a focus on ROI, concluding with a discussion of approaches and guidelines for future work–family intervention research and practice.

scholarly journals Innovation to enhance health in care homes and evaluation of tools for measuring outcomes of care: rapid evidence synthesis

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (27) ◽  
pp. 1-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Hanratty ◽  
Dawn Craig ◽  
Katie Brittain ◽  
Karen Spilsbury ◽  
John Vines ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Care Home ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Models Of Care ◽  
Support Staff ◽  
Care Homes ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Measurement Tools ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Future Work ◽  
Health And Well Being

BackgroundFlexible, integrated models of service delivery are being developed to meet the changing demands of an ageing population. To underpin the spread of innovative models of care across the NHS, summaries of the current research evidence are needed. This report focuses exclusively on care homes and reviews work in four specific areas, identified as key enablers for the NHS England vanguard programme.AimTo conduct a rapid synthesis of evidence relating to enhancing health in care homes across four key areas: technology, communication and engagement, workforce and evaluation.Objectives(1) To map the published literature on the uses, benefits and challenges of technology in care homes; flexible and innovative uses of the nursing and support workforce to benefit resident care; communication and engagement between care homes, communities and health-related organisations; and approaches to the evaluation of new models of care in care homes. (2) To conduct rapid, systematic syntheses of evidence to answer the following questions. Which technologies have a positive impact on resident health and well-being? How should care homes and the NHS communicate to enhance resident, family and staff outcomes and experiences? Which measurement tools have been validated for use in UK care homes? What is the evidence that staffing levels (i.e. ratio of registered nurses and support staff to residents or different levels of support staff) influence resident outcomes?Data sourcesSearches of MEDLINE, CINAHL, Science Citation Index, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, DARE (Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects) and Index to Theses. Grey literature was sought via Google™ (Mountain View, CA, USA) and websites relevant to each individual search.DesignMapping review and rapid, systematic evidence syntheses.SettingCare homes with and without nursing in high-income countries.Review methodsPublished literature was mapped to a bespoke framework, and four linked rapid critical reviews of the available evidence were undertaken using systematic methods. Data were not suitable for meta-analysis, and are presented in narrative syntheses.ResultsSeven hundred and sixty-one studies were mapped across the four topic areas, and 65 studies were included in systematic rapid reviews. This work identified a paucity of large, high-quality research studies, particularly from the UK. The key findings include the following. (1) Technology: some of the most promising interventions appear to be games that promote physical activity and enhance mental health and well-being. (2) Communication and engagement: structured communication tools have been shown to enhance communication with health services and resident outcomes in US studies. No robust evidence was identified on care home engagement with communities. (3) Evaluation: 6 of the 65 measurement tools identified had been validated for use in UK care homes, two of which provide general assessments of care. The methodological quality of all six tools was assessed as poor. (4) Workforce: joint working within and beyond the care home and initiatives that focus on staff taking on new but specific care tasks appear to be associated with enhanced outcomes. Evidence for staff taking on traditional nursing tasks without qualification is limited, but promising.LimitationsThis review was restricted to English-language publications after the year 2000. The rapid methodology has facilitated a broad review in a short time period, but the possibility of omissions and errors cannot be excluded.ConclusionsThis review provides limited evidential support for some of the innovations in the NHS vanguard programme, and identifies key issues and gaps for future research and evaluation.Future workFuture work should provide high-quality evidence, in particular experimental studies, economic evaluations and research sensitive to the UK context.Study registrationThis study is registered as PROSPERO CRD42016052933, CRD42016052933, CRD42016052937 and CRD42016052938.FundingThe National Institute for Health Research Health Services and Delivery Research programme.

Diet Quality, a Term Subject to Change over Time

2012 ◽  
Vol 82 (3) ◽  
pp. 144-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ibrahim Elmadfa ◽  
Alexa L. Meyer
Keyword(s):  
Diet Quality ◽  
Functional Foods ◽  
Disease Risk ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Industrialized Countries ◽  
Quality Factors ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Quality Diet ◽  
Important Quality ◽  
Health And Well Being

A high-quality diet is one of the foundations of health and well-being. For a long time in human history, diet was chiefly a source of energy and macronutrients meant to still hunger and give the strength for work and activities that were in general much harder than nowadays. Only few persons could afford to emphasize enjoyment. In the assessment of quality, organoleptic properties were major criteria to detect spoilage and oxidative deterioration of food. Today, food hygiene is a quality aspect that is often taken for granted by consumers, despite its lack being at the origin of most food-borne diseases. The discovery of micronutrients entailed fundamental changes of the concept of diet quality. However, non-essential food components with additional health functions were still barely known or not considered important until recently. With the high burden of obesity and its associated diseases on the rise, affluent, industrialized countries have developed an increased interest in these substances, which has led to the development of functional foods to optimize special body functions, reduce disease risk, or even contribute to therapeutic approaches. Indeed, nowadays, high contents of energy, fat, and sugar are factors associated with a lower quality of food, and products with reduced amounts of these components are valued by many consumers. At the same time, enjoyment and convenience are important quality factors, presenting food manufacturers with the dilemma of reconciling low fat content and applicability with good taste and appealing appearance. Functional foods offer an approach to address this challenge. Deeper insights into nutrient-gene interactions may enable personalized nutrition adapted to the special needs of individuals. However, so far, a varied healthy diet remains the best basis for health and well-being.

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