JP2004351184A - Ubiquitous health management support system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a ubiquitous health management support system more highly convenient for a user compared to conventional ones. <P>SOLUTION: This health management system with a two-way communication function is related to a ubiquitous portable information terminal with an organism information obtaining means by which a user can measure degree of stress and degree of fatigue and execute his health management regardless of a place or time. When the result of inference from organism information obtained by the organism information obtaining means is over a threshold value, a communication to a prescribed medical organization is possible and because organism information obtained by the user is periodically and continuously stored and kept, not only statistics/comparison/evaluation are possible, but also the user can output the stored information and bring it with him upon seeing a doctor for a disease etc. in a hospital and otherwise send them directly to the hospital by a communication means such as an electronic mail etc. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2005,JPO&NCIPI

Description

[Industrial applications]
The present invention is provided with a two-way communication function that is particularly suitable for maintaining the health of elderly people who are worried about their daily health, preventing lifestyle-related diseases of ordinary people, etc., by quickly acquiring the user's biological information at any place. Is a ubiquitous health support system based on preventive medicine, which comprises an information terminal and a biological information processing device that processes biological information of the user.
The convenience of portable information terminals is something that everyone recognizes, and above all, its penetration rate has proven. In recent years, a concept of authenticating a ticket gate at a station with an ID of a portable information terminal instead of a commuter pass has been studied for implementation. In addition, at universities and preparatory schools, the ID of the portable information terminal is authenticated and used for confirming student attendance. In addition, it shows its full potential at the time of emergency communication, such as communication from a car accident, distress in the mountains or fire notification. Therefore, its utilization rate is high all over the world, and it is said that the penetration rate from children to elderly people is 70% or 80% in Japan. The portable information terminal includes a portable information terminal such as a cellular phone, a PHS, a PDA, a transceiver or an information terminal such as a digital television, a telephone, and a PC (not shown) shown in FIGS. 7, 8, and 12.
In particular, recent portable information terminals are equipped not only with a high-performance microprocessor but also with a large-capacity storage device, and are equipped not only with a telephone directory function but also with an e-mail transmission / reception and a navigation function using GPS as well as digital functions. It has a function as a general communication information terminal that has a camera and can also communicate acquired image data. In a model equipped with a digital signal processor and having a voice recognition function, an operation by voice recognition can be performed without pressing a telephone number with a finger. As described above, the hardware configuration of the multifunctional portable information terminal is equipped with a high-performance processor capable of performing high-speed calculations and processing, and is a functional configuration sufficient for performing voice recognition and voice synthesis. . The biological information acquisition means includes a probe for inserting a fingertip for measuring pulse wave, pulse, skin temperature, blood pressure, body fat, peripheral blood flow, and arterial oxygen saturation, and a near infrared ray is provided on the fingertip. The irradiating element and the light receiving element for transmitting or reflecting light convert the reflection / absorption of hemoglobin in the fingertip blood into an electric signal, so that the volume blood flow at the fingertip can be measured.
After the analog data obtained by the biological information acquisition means as shown in FIG. 4 is converted into digital data by an A / D converter, the data may be transmitted from a portable information terminal via an interface to a server via a network, or may be transmitted to a server. The information terminal may infer the health condition of the user by calculating the acquired biological information. A biological information acquiring means capable of measuring a plurality of biological information to be acquired which is pre-programmed or instructed by a communication means by navigating by display or voice synthesis indicating that the user performs daily health care; It is a portable information terminal. When acquiring biometric information, the portable information terminal itself can appropriately display an operation method or the like on a display device or navigate to a user with a speech synthesis technology, and the user performs an inquiry according to the navigation of the portable information terminal. Upon receiving the information, a plurality of pieces of biological information may be acquired. The portable information terminal has a function of storing the user's answer and the obtained biological information as the user's biological information in response to an inquiry performed by voice recognition and voice synthesis or display, or transferring the obtained biological information to a server by communication means. In addition, the portable information terminal can not only support health management but also quantitatively measure and display the degree of stress and fatigue.
[Prior art]
In recent years, as a system effective for preventive medicine health management, a user's biometric information is acquired not only at home but also at any place without going to a hospital, and is utilized for maintaining health based on the biometric information as shown in FIG. Ubiquitous systems are expected. In general, biometric information usually changes every moment during the day, but if such changing biometric information can be easily measured and communicated with a portable information terminal equipped with a two-way communication function, In particular, it is possible to carry out appropriate health management without specifying the location or user, so particularly busy office workers, smokers who are concerned about health, elderly people, overworked users, subjects during illness treatment, living alone Many people, such as the elderly, do not want to go to a hospital but want to manage their own health quickly and easily. In addition, there is no ubiquitous portable information health support system which has a function of supporting health maintenance management for preventing disease by acquiring biological information mainly for home health management in the coming super-aged society.
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
In recent years, the health insurance union has collapsed and the healthcare burden has fallen to 30%, and our people are changing their awareness of preventive medicine and the medical system. For example, the recent health-oriented boom is the most significant, and the change in awareness is illness. There is preventive health maintenance. In other words, it is to maintain daily life as healthy as possible by maintaining a body that is hard to get sick by improving immune function, but it is expected that awareness of health will increase further in the future super-aging society Is done.
The present invention is expected to increase the necessity of home health care support equipment as well as the nursing care equipment together with the convenience of the multifunctional portable information terminal. Therefore, providing a portable information terminal with a biological information acquisition function and applying it to a ubiquitous health support system is an important concept not only from the future medical system but also from the convenience of users.
[Means to solve the problem]
The apparatus of the biological information acquisition means includes, for example, blood pressure, pulse measurement, and the like, all of which are common and well-known. Further, biological information obtained by a finger includes pulse waves and arterial blood oxygen saturation. The pulse wave was conventionally known as reflecting the state of the autonomic nervous function, but Western medicine mainly measures the pulse rate, and in Eastern medicine, it has been called pulse diagnosis for a long time. Although it was used to grasp diseases and health conditions, it was a diagnostic method that relied on human senses, and no scientific or quantitative measurement method had been established.
In addition, since the recent portable information terminals 500 and 600 are equipped with a display device, it is possible to accurately display information on the degree of stress, the degree of fatigue, and health management obtained from biological information. In addition, since the portable information terminals 500 and 600 have a voice synthesis function, it is possible to notify the inference result regarding the user's health level by voice using this function. As described above, if the user's health status is inferred using the functions of the portable information terminals 50 and 600 from the beginning, it is possible to realize commercialization with a minimum cost. As shown in FIG. 8, a program for inferring the state of health from the user's biological information may be obtained by partially changing or adding a control program in the portable information terminal. Further, as shown in FIGS. 5, 6, and 7, it is not always necessary to perform the arithmetic processing on the biometric information in the portable information terminal, and the acquired biometric information is transmitted to the server device by the communication unit, and the complicated arithmetic is performed in the server device. After that, the result of inference of the user's health condition may be received by the portable information terminal as an e-mail. This method can be used as a communication unit and a display device for biometric information without changing the hardware of the portable information terminal shown in FIGS. 7, 8 and 12. The means for transmitting the biological information to the server is not limited to the portable information terminal, but may be any information terminal capable of performing two-way communication. For example, a television device capable of two-way communication may be used.
The portable information terminal may be a mobile phone 500, a PHS, a PDA 600, or the like, but may be a PC capable of connecting to the Internet at home. In this case, the form of connection to the communication means may be wired or wireless, but it is preferable that it does not hinder the use of the portable information terminal or PC. When it is necessary to manage biometric information of a plurality of users, it is needless to say that authentication of each user needs to be managed by an ID number or a password. The biological information includes pulse wave, pulse, blood pressure, skin temperature, electrocardiogram, arterial oxygen saturation, etc., but gender, age, weight, items by interview, body fat percentage, height, etc. Health management support can be implemented with higher accuracy. In addition, since mobile information terminals are equipped with communication means as standard, in the event of an emergency such as an accident, the biometric information of not only the user but also the third party must be transmitted in real time to a remote hospital via a server. Becomes possible. Of the pulse wave, pulse, blood pressure, and skin temperature as the biological information, the pulse wave is desirably measured at the peripheral part of the user. The peripheral part can be measured with the earlobe or finger, but the biological information of the user can be measured. To improve the accuracy, fingertips are preferable to earlobes that are easily affected by external light. In particular, as shown in FIGS. 10 and 11, the pulse wave is irradiated with infrared light from the skin of the fingertip, and the light component absorbed and reflected by hemoglobin in the blood of the arterial blood 105 is captured by the light receiving element and converted into an electric signal. Is common and convenient. The light-receiving element is a phototransistor, and it is necessary to amplify an output signal by 10 dB or more using biological information with an amplifier and to adjust an output waveform with a low-pass filter of about 80 to 300 Hz. The arterial blood oxygen saturation is obtained by capturing a plurality of light components having different wavelengths with a light receiving element and converting the light components into electric signals. The plurality of light components are infrared light and red light, and are measured with the same fingertip as the pulse wave measurement. Is possible. The measurement principle of the arterial blood oxygen saturation is that oxygen is carried by the oxidation and reduction of hemoglobin in blood, and the oxidation of hemoglobin decreases the absorption of red light, increases the absorption of infrared light, and the reduction of hemoglobin is the opposite. The change in the optical properties of hemoglobin which is said to be obtained can be obtained by a simple calculation. The blood pressure can be measured by a pressure sensor as a pressure wave, but the skin temperature is preferably provided with a temperature IC sensor at a portion where the finger contacts.
Normally, the measurement time of the biological information is about 10 to 40 seconds, but the biological information processing of the present invention uses only an inexpensive microchip because only the stable data of 5 to 10 seconds is calculated by batch processing. It is enough.
BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION
When acquiring the pulse wave shown in FIG. 1 by the biological information acquisition means 40 and using it as the biological information, the waveform of the pulse wave is simple and it is difficult to perform an accurate health check even if it is analyzed by a computer. Therefore, the pulse wave is differentiated by the second factor to obtain an acceleration pulse wave (APG) and the waveform change is expanded, so that it is easy to infer the user health state from the waveform change degree.
In performing the inference of the abnormal state of the user's health, the blood flow discharged from the heart is measured as the reason for measuring the pulse wave of the fingertip when it is transmitted to the periphery of the fingertip. It is likely to be affected by physiological conditions such as changes in system properties and is reflected in the pulse wave waveform. FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram of a pulse wave as biological information, and FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of an acceleration pulse wave. The acceleration pulse wave is composed of five element waves A, B, C, D, and E. The component wave is a wave in systole. The vertex A in the acceleration pulse wave of FIG. 2 coincides with the first rising point in the contraction wave of the finger plethysmogram (DPG), and the vertex E coincides with the beginning of the diastolic wave of the finger plethysmogram. The required time from to the vertex E becomes equal to the contraction time axis length of the heart. The vertex A in the acceleration pulse wave is a positive wave on the positive side, the vertex B is a negative wave on the negative side, and the next vertices C, D, and E are positive or negative depending on the physiological state, respectively. It is a changing wave and has a strong correlation with the age of the user. When the pulse wave of the user is measured, when the user is in a nervous state, the heart rate increases and the fingertip blood flow tends to decrease, the peak B wave decreases, and conversely, the peak D wave increases. Therefore, in the waveform analysis of the acceleration pulse wave, it is preferable to calculate the increase rate of B / A and the decrease rate of D / A by calculation. Generally, when the user is in a nervous state, the sympathetic nerve of the autonomic nervous system becomes dominant and can be inferred as a change in the waveform in the acceleration pulse wave which is the biological information of the user, but the pulse, blood pressure, skin temperature, etc. When inferring with a computer in combination with other biological information, it becomes possible to infer the user's health condition with high accuracy. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 3, in the program of the ubiquitous health management system, even if no abnormality is found in blood pressure, pulse, skin temperature, etc., if it is inferred that the acceleration pulse wave is in any abnormal state, the user is notified to the user. A display for calling attention is output by a display device or voice by voice synthesis. Furthermore, the ubiquitous-type health management system program may be used to regularly receive life guidance from a medical institution by transferring data of the user's biological information to a medical institution contracted and set in advance by a communication means. . Further, since the acceleration pulse wave is correlated with the age as described above, if the age of the user is set in advance, the aging ratio can be displayed in comparison with the acceleration pulse wave based on the statistical age. In addition, computer analysis of acceleration pulse wave by chaos theory, which is a complex system analysis, infers regularity from biological information that seems to have no regularity, so that not only fatigue and stress, but also user's physical health and illness It is possible to infer the degree.
【The invention's effect】
As described in detail above, the ubiquitous health management support system according to the present invention calculates biometric information of the user by network communication or the CPU of the information terminal itself within about 1 minute after the user puts his finger into the sensor. In this way, the present invention infers the degree of health of the user and then informs the user about the life support and the degree of health or illness. The present invention exerts an excellent effect.
[Brief description of the drawings]
Fig. 1 Pulse wave waveform Fig. 2 Basic waveform of acceleration pulse wave (second-order differentiation of pulse wave)
FIG. 3 is a flowchart of control of biometric information acquisition and a portable information terminal. FIG. 4 is an explanatory view of a portable communication device having a biometric information acquisition means function. FIG. 5 is a network-connected information terminal. FIG. 6 is a network-connected portable information. Terminal [FIG. 7] A portable information terminal connected to a network [FIG. 8] A stand-alone portable information terminal [FIG. 9] Application example of a portable information terminal connected to a network [FIG. 1
FIG. 11 is an explanatory diagram of a biological information acquisition unit using fingertips, part 2
FIG. 12 is an explanatory diagram of an information terminal provided with a biological information acquisition unit.
10 Display Function 20 Portable Information Terminal 40 with Home Health Management Function Biological Information Acquisition Means 50 Any of Wired System, Wireless System, Direct Installation System 51 Communication Card 100 Hand 105 Arterial Blood 200a Photointerrupter 200b Photointerrupter 201 Phototransistor 202 LED
300 interface device (including amplifier, low-pass filter and A / D converter)
500 information terminal 600 portable information terminal

Claims (11)

An information terminal having a two-way communication function used by a user and a biometric information processing apparatus for processing the user's biometric information are connected to a server via a network, and the user has information having the two-way communication function. The terminal measures one or more of pulse wave, arterial blood oxygen saturation, blood pressure, and skin temperature with a fingertip and transmits this biological information to the server. The server records the user's health information such as pulse wave, arterial blood oxygen saturation, blood pressure, skin temperature and the like as the user health information, and calculates the information terminal. Transmitting at least the user's health information to the information terminal in response to a request from the user. It relates to health support system to infer the degree of health information. An information terminal having a two-way communication function used by a user is provided with a processing device for arithmetically processing the biological information of the user, and recording, reproduction, comparison, statistics, and display functions of the biological information obtained from the user are provided. A ubiquitous information terminal with a stand-alone type of biometric information acquisition that has the function of inferring the degree of health on the information terminal itself and notifying the user of the information terminal without necessarily transmitting to the server via the network for processing Related to a health support system. An information terminal provided with a two-way communication function used by a user, wherein an authentication function for discriminating the ID number of the user and not disclosing the user's biometric information to a third party other than the user is provided. A health support system based on biological information according to claim 1. A biological information processing apparatus for processing biological information of the user according to claim 1, wherein the biological information processing apparatus is connected to a server via a network, and the user uses an information terminal having a two-way communication function to perform pulse wave, arterial blood oxygen saturation, When one or more of blood pressure and skin temperature are measured and transmitted to the server as biological information, the biological information of the user is automatically fetched from the server by the biological information processing device, and the processing is performed. And automatically transmits user health information to the server, and the server records user health information such as pulse wave, arterial blood oxygen saturation, blood pressure, and skin temperature as the user health information, and stores the information terminal. The present invention relates to a health support system having a function in which an information terminal equipped with a two-way communication means for automatically transmitting information to a user infers a degree of health from user biometric information through network communication. Than it is. 2. The health support system based on biological information according to claim 1, further comprising a voice recognition function, capable of executing a user's biological information acquisition start and end operations using any of a voice and an operation button, and a medical inquiry function. Things. A voice capable of identifying whether or not it is a user's voice by voice registration in an information terminal having a two-way communication function for acquiring biometric information of the user having the voice recognition function according to claim 5. This is a health management support system using biological information, which is provided with a recognition and voice authentication function. 2. The health support system using biological information according to claim 1, further comprising a communication interface for transmitting and receiving biological information of the user from an information terminal having a two-way communication function. A pulse wave is obtained from the biological information of the user, and the central processing unit infers the health state of the user from the acceleration pulse wave obtained by performing the second-order differentiation of the pulse wave data and displays the inferred state to the user or The health support system based on biological information according to claim 1, wherein the system can be notified by voice. 2. The system according to claim 1, wherein the arterial blood oxygen saturation and skin temperature are obtained from the user's biological information, and the user's health condition can be inferred and displayed to the user or notified by voice. The present invention relates to a health support system using biological information. When the acquired user's biometric information is abnormal, it is possible to notify or inform by a communication means to a medical or natural person other than the user registered and set in the information terminal in advance via communication means. The present invention relates to a health support system based on biological information according to claim 1. An information terminal having a two-way communication function used by a user is connected to a server via a network, and a user is provided with a biometric information processing device for processing the user's biometric information. A pulse wave and arterial blood oxygen saturation are measured by a fingertip or an earlobe with an information terminal having a function, and this biological information and a user's face image are transmitted to the server, and the biological information processing apparatus uses the information from the server. It takes in the user's biological information, performs arithmetic processing, infers the user's health level, sends the user's health level information to the server, the server records the user's health information, and the request from the information terminal is the user. 2. The health support system using biological information according to claim 1, wherein the user's health information is transmitted to the information terminal after authenticating the user's facial image.

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