Technology and Health Care - Volume 25, issue 3

Authors: Shim, Sung J. | Kumar, Arun | Jiao, Roger

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: BACKGROUND: Some healthcare managers use computer simulation to assist with staffing. As staffing actions are usually slow to evolve and long term in nature, computer simulation can provide the opportunity to evaluate different alternatives at substantially lower costs with fewer risks. OBJECTIVE: Using computer simulation, this paper seeks to determine the optimal number and allocation of clerks involved in the patient registration process of a hospital. METHODS: This paper is based on a case study conducted in a hospital and uses historical data provided by the hospital in simulating the patient registration process. …RESULTS: The simulation results indicate that computer simulation can be an effective decision supporting tool in modeling the patient registration process and evaluating the effects of changes in the number and allocation of clerks in the process. CONCLUSIONS: Based upon a case study applying real-world data, the results of this paper would be beneficial to those who consider utilizing computer simulation for staffing decisions. Show more

Keywords: Staffing, simulation, hospital, patient registration

DOI: 10.3233/THC-161268

Citation: Technology and Health Care, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 385-390, 2017

Authors: Tsirmpas, Charalampos | Kouris, Ioannis | Anastasiou, Athanasios | Giokas, Kostas | Iliopoulou, Dimitra | Koutsouris, Dimitris

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Internet of Things (IoT) is the logical further development of today's Internet, enabling a huge amount of devices to communicate, compute, sense and act. IoT sensors placed in Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) environments, enable the context awareness and allow the support of the elderly in their daily routines, ultimately allowing an independent and safe lifestyle. The vast amount of data that are generated and exchanged between the IoT nodes require innovative context modeling approaches that go beyond currently used models. Current paper presents and evaluates an open interoperable platform architecture in order to utilize the technical characteristics of IoT and …handle the large amount of generated data, as a solution to the technical requirements of AAL applications. Show more

Keywords: Internet of Things, ambient assisted living, telemonitoring, context aware

DOI: 10.3233/THC-161270

Citation: Technology and Health Care, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 391-401, 2017

Authors: Roh, Hee-Tae | So, Wi-Young

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Cranial electrotherapy stimulation (CES) is reported to aid in relieving symptoms of depression and anxiety, though the mechanism underlying this effect remains unclear. Therefore, the present study aimed to evaluate changes in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis response and levels of neurotrophic factors, as well as changes in mood state, in patients undergoing CES therapy. Fifty healthy postmenopausal women were randomly assigned to either a Sham CES group (n = 25) or an Active CES group (n = 25). CES treatment was conducted in 20-minute sessions, three times per week for 8 weeks, using a micro current cranial electrotherapy stimulator. Blood …samples were collected prior to and following the 8-week treatment period for measurement of cortisol, adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), and nerve growth factor (NGF) levels. Changes in mood state were also examined at the time of blood collection using the Profile of Mood States (POMS). No significant differences in cortisol, ACTH, BDNF, or NGF were observed between the two participant groups (p > 0.05) following the treatment period. However, those in the Active CES group exhibited significantly decreased Tension-Anxiety and Depression-Dejection scores on the POMS relative to pre-treatment scores (p < 0.05). Furthermore, Depression-Dejection scores following treatment were significantly lower in the Active CES group than in the Sham CES group (p < 0.05). No significant differences were observed in any other POMS scores such as Anger-Hostility, Vigor-Activity, Fatigue-Inertia, and Confusion-Bewilderment (p > 0.05). These results suggest that 8 weeks of CES treatment does not induce changes in blood levels of neurotrophic factors or HPA-axis-related hormones, though such treatment may be effective in treating symptoms of anxiety and depression. Show more

Keywords: Cranial electrotherapy stimulation, depression, anxiety, mental health, neurotrophic factor

DOI: 10.3233/THC-161275

Citation: Technology and Health Care, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 403-412, 2017

Authors: Zeinali-Rafsanjani, B. | Faghihi, R. | Mosleh-Shirazi, M.A. | Mosalaei, A. | Hadad, K.

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: PURPOSE: Given the high local control rates observed in breast cancer patients undergoing chest wall irradiation by kilovoltage x-rays, we aimed to revisit this treatment modality by accurate calculation of dose distributions using Monte Carlo simulation. METHODS AND MATERIAL: The machine components were simulated using the MCNPX code. This model was used to assess the dose distribution of chest wall kilovoltage treatment in different chest wall thicknesses and larger contour or fat patients in standard and mid sternum treatment plans. Assessments were performed at 50 and 100 cm focus surface distance (FSD) and different irradiation angles. …In order to evaluate different plans, indices like homogeneity index, conformity index, the average dose of heart, lung, left anterior descending artery (LAD) and percentage target coverage (PTC) were used. Finally, the results were compared with the indices provided by electron therapy which is a more routine treatment of chest wall. RESULT: These indices in a medium chest wall thickness in standard treatment plan at 50 cm FSD and 15 degrees tube angle was as follows: homogeneity index 2.57, conformity index 7.31, average target dose 27.43 Gy, average dose of heart, lung and LAD, 1.03, 2.08 and 1.60 Gy respectively and PTC 11.19%. Assessments revealed that dose homogeneity in planning target volume (PTV) and conformity between the high dose region and PTV was poor. To improve the treatment indices, the reference point was transferred from the chest wall skin surface to the center of PTV. The indices changed as follows: conformity index 7.31, average target dose 60.19 Gy, the average dose of heart, lung and LAD, 3.57, 6.38 and 5.05 Gy respectively and PTC 55.24%. Coverage index of electron therapy was 89% while it was 22.74% in the old orthovoltage method and also the average dose of the target was about 50 Gy but in the given method it was almost 30 Gy. CONCLUSION: The results of the treatment study show that the optimized standard and mid sternum treatment for different chest wall thicknesses is with 50 cm FSD and zero (vertical) tube angle, while in large contour patients, it is with 100 cm FSD and zero tube angle. Finally, chest wall kilovoltage and electron therapies were compared, which revealed that electron therapy produces a better dose distribution than kilovoltage therapy. Show more

Keywords: Chest wall irradiation, orthovoltage therapy, Monte Carlo simulation, treatment planning

DOI: 10.3233/THC-161276

Citation: Technology and Health Care, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 413-424, 2017

Authors: Evangelista, Lorraine S. | Ghasemzadeh, Hassan | Lee, Jung-Ah | Fallahzadeh, Ramin | Sarrafzadeh, Majid | Moser, Debra K.

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: BACKGROUND: It is unclear whether subgroups of patients may benefit from remote monitoring systems (RMS) and what user characteristics and contextual factors determine effective use of RMS in patients with heart failure (HF). OBJECTIVE: The study was conducted to determine whether certain user characteristics (i.e. personal and clinical variables) predict use of RMS using advanced machine learning software algorithms in patients with HF. METHODS: This pilot study was a single-arm experimental study with a pre- (baseline) and post- (3 months) design; data from the baseline measures were used for the current data analyses. …Sixteen patients provided consent; only 7 patients (mean age 65.8 ± 6.1, range 58-83) accessed the RMS and transmitted daily data (e.g. weight, blood pressure) as instructed during the 12 week study duration. RESULTS: Baseline demographic and clinical characteristics of users and non-users were comparable for a majority of factors. However, users were more likely to have no HF specialty based care or an automatic internal cardioverter defibrillator. The precision accuracy of decision tree, multilayer perceptron (MLP) and k-Nearest Neighbor (k-NN) classifiers for predicting access to RMS was 87.5%, 90.3%, and 94.5% respectively. CONCLUSION: Our preliminary data show that a small set of baseline attributes is sufficient to predict subgroups of patients who had a higher likelihood of using RMS. While our findings shed light on potential end-users more likely to benefit from RMS-based interventions, additional research in a larger sample is warranted to explicate the impact of user characteristics on actual use of these technologies. Show more

Keywords: E-health, telecardiology, telehealth

DOI: 10.3233/THC-161279

Citation: Technology and Health Care, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 425-433, 2017

Authors: Liu, Shuangyan | Teng, Jing | Qi, Xianghua | Wei, Shoushui | Liu, Chengyu

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: BACKGROUND: The usefulness of heart rate variability (HRV) in the clinical research has been verified in numerous studies. However, it is controversy that using pulse rate variability (PRV) as a surrogate of HRV in different clinical applications. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to investigate whether PRV extracted from finger pulse photoplethysmography (Pleth) signal could substitute HRV from ECG signal during different sleep stages by analyzing the common time-domain, frequency-domain and non-linear indices. METHODS: Seventy-five sleep apnea patients were enrolled. For each patient, ECG and Pleth signals were simultaneously recorded for the whole night using …Alice Sleepware Polysomnographic System and the sleep stage signals were automatically calculated by this System. Time-domain, frequency-domain and non-linear indices of both HRV and PRV were calculated for each sleep stage. RESULTS: Mann-Whitney U-test showed that for both time-domain and frequency-domain indices, there were no statistical differences between HRV and PRV results during all four sleep stages. For non-linear indices, sample entropy reported statistical differences between HRV and PRV results for N1, N2 and REM sleeps (all P< 0.01) whereas fuzzy measure entropy only reported statistical differences for REM sleep (P< 0.05). SDNN, LF and LF/HF indices decreased for both HRV and PRV with the sleep deepening while HF and non-linear indices increased. In addition, there were strong and significant correlation between HRV and PRV indices during all four sleep stages (all P< 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: PRV measurement could present the similar results as HRV analysis for sleep apnea patients during different sleep stages. Show more

Keywords: Heart rate variability, pulse rate variability, sleep apnea, sleep stage

DOI: 10.3233/THC-161283

Citation: Technology and Health Care, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 435-445, 2017

Authors: Xia, Yirong | Yang, Licai | Mao, Xueqin | Zheng, Dingchang | Liu, Chengyu

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Recent studies have indicated that physiological parameters change with different emotion states. This study aimed to quantify the changes of vascular function at different emotion and sub-emotion states. Twenty young subjects were studied with their finger photoplethysmographic (PPG) pulses recorded at three distinct emotion states: natural (1 minute), happiness and sadness (10 minutes for each). Within the period of happiness and sadness emotion states, two sub-emotion states (calmness and outburst) were identified with the synchronously recorded videos. Reflection index (RI) and stiffness index (SI), two widely used indices of vascular function, were derived from the PPG pulses to quantify their …differences between three emotion states, as well as between two sub-emotion states. The results showed that, when compared with the natural emotion, RI and SI decreased in both happiness and sadness emotions. The decreases in RI were significant for both happiness and sadness emotions (both P< 0.01), but the decreases in SI was only significant for sadness emotion (P< 0.01). Moreover, for comparing happiness and sadness emotions, there was significant difference in RI (P< 0.01), but not in SI (P= 0.9). In addition, significant larger RI values were observed with the outburst sub-emotion in comparison with the calmness one for both happiness and sadness emotions (both P< 0.01) whereas significant larger SI values were observed with the outburst sub-emotion only in sadness emotion (P< 0.05). Moreover, gender factor hardly influence the RI and SI results for all three emotion measurements. This pilot study confirmed that vascular function changes with diffenrt emotion states could be quantified by the simple PPG measurement. Show more

Keywords: Emotion recognition, PPG, vascular function, reflection index, stiffness index

DOI: 10.3233/THC-161284

Citation: Technology and Health Care, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 447-456, 2017

Authors: Kobayashi, Yuske | Hauptmann, Ralf | Kratz, Harald | Ebert, Monika | Wagner, Susanne | Taupitz, Matthias

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: BACKGROUND: Pharmacokinetic studies and histological detection of superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIO) in biomedical research are limited due to a high iron background especially in pathological tissues. OBJECTIVE: The suitability of doping the iron oxide cores of SPIO with europium (Eu) was tested for improved histologic detection and for quantitative analysis without changing their properties as probes for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). A special variant of SPIO, so called very small superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (VSOP), was used for this approach. METHODS: VSOP, stabilized by a citrate coating, were synthesized with and without …addition of Eu (Eu-VSOP and VSOP, respectively). MR signal enhancing effects of Eu-VSOP and VSOP were studied in vitro. Cellular uptake of Eu-VSOP and VSOP was examined in RAW264.7 cells. For Eu-VSOP, fluorescence microscopy and spectrophotometry were used. Eu fluorescence was enhanced by means of an antenna system. For VSOP, Prussian blue staining and photometry using the phenanthroline method were applied. Results for both VSOP variants were compared. RESULTS: Eu-VSOP and VSOP did not differ with respect to MR signal enhancing effects nor to uptake characteristics in the RAW264.7 cell experiments. Fluorescence microscopy detects Eu-VSOP with higher sensitivity compared to light microscopy using Prussian blue staining. In microscopy as well as in the analytical quantification using fluorescence, detection of Eu-VSOP is not contaminated by Fe background. CONCLUSIONS: Doping the VSOP with Eu allows for their improved detection by fluorescence microscopy and quantitative analysis without changing their cellular uptake characteristics or their MR signal enhancing effects and thus would allow for a multimodal approach for studying their pharmacokinetics and biodistribution in experimental research. Show more

Keywords: Iron oxide nanoparticles, molecular imaging, lanthanide luminescence, MRI, macrophage

DOI: 10.3233/THC-161285

Citation: Technology and Health Care, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 457-470, 2017

Authors: Ahmad, Rana Fayyaz | Malik, Aamir Saeed | Kamel, Nidal | Reza, Faruque | Amin, Hafeez Ullah | Hussain, Muhammad

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: BACKGROUND: Classification of the visual information from the brain activity data is a challenging task. Many studies reported in the literature are based on the brain activity patterns using either fMRI or EEG/MEG only. EEG and fMRI considered as two complementary neuroimaging modalities in terms of their temporal and spatial resolution to map the brain activity. For getting a high spatial and temporal resolution of the brain at the same time, simultaneous EEG-fMRI seems to be fruitful. METHODS: In this article, we propose a new method based on simultaneous EEG-fMRI data and machine learning approach to …classify the visual brain activity patterns. We acquired EEG-fMRI data simultaneously on the ten healthy human participants by showing them visual stimuli. Data fusion approach is used to merge EEG and fMRI data. Machine learning classifier is used for the classification purposes. RESULTS: Results showed that superior classification performance has been achieved with simultaneous EEG-fMRI data as compared to the EEG and fMRI data standalone. This shows that multimodal approach improved the classification accuracy results as compared with other approaches reported in the literature. CONCLUSIONS: The proposed simultaneous EEG-fMRI approach for classifying the brain activity patterns can be helpful to predict or fully decode the brain activity patterns. Show more

Keywords: EEG, fMRI, simultaneous EEG-fMRI, data fusion, classification

DOI: 10.3233/THC-161286

Citation: Technology and Health Care, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 471-485, 2017

Authors: Mugica, Francisco | Nebot, Àngela | Bagherpour, Solmaz | Baladón, Luisa | Serrano-Blanco, Antonio

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Major depressive disorder causes more human suffering than any other disease affecting humankind. It has a high prevalence and it is predicted that it will be among the three leading causes of disease burden by 2030. The prevalence of depression, all of its social and personal costs, and its recurrent characteristics, put heavy constraints on the ability of the public healthcare system to provide sufficient support for patients with depression. In this research, a model for continuous monitoring and tracking of depression in both short-term and long-term periods is presented. This model is based on a …new qualitative reasoning approach. METHOD: This paper describes the patient assessment unit of a major depression monitoring system that has three modules: a patient progress module, based on a qualitative reasoning model; an analysis module, based on expert knowledge and a rules-based system; and the communication module. These modules base their reasoning mainly on data of the patient's mood and life events that are obtained from the patient's responses to specific questionnaires (PHQ-9, M.I.N.I. and Brugha). The patient assessment unit provides synthetic and useful information for both patients and physicians, keeps them informed of the progress of patients, and alerts them in the case of necessity. RESULTS: A set of hypothetical patients has been defined based on clinically possible cases in order to perform a complete scenario evaluation. The results that have been verified by psychiatrists suggest the utility of the platform. CONCLUSION: The proposed major depression monitoring system takes advantage of current technologies and facilitates more frequent follow-up of the progress of patients during their home stay after being diagnosed with depression by a psychiatrist. Show more

Keywords: Major depressive disorder, remote monitoring system, rule-base system, qualitative reasoning

DOI: 10.3233/THC-161289

Citation: Technology and Health Care, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 487-511, 2017