Smart Clothes to Take Care of People or Smart People Who Use Clothes to Take Care of Themselves?
Since the dawn of human life, we have used clothes and accessories to protect our health and defend ourselves from the elements and danger. From the mid-1990s onward, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology began to explore the possibility of incorporating microprocessors into textiles.1 Since then, 3 areas of innovation have strongly promoted the development of smart clothing: the introduction of new fibers in textiles (eg, conductive materials), the miniaturization of electronic devices, and the development of wireless communication. The latter enables clothes to communicate and interact with personal computers and mobile phones.
Smart clothes were originally designed for use in clinical settings. However, thanks to miniaturization and mobile technology, their use has recently proliferated in the general population as a tool for health and wellbeing. According to the World Health Organization,
mobile health (known as mHealth), will soon be available to 90% of the world population. mHealth has undergone exponential growth and currently there are more than 100 000 medical applications that can be used on computers or mobile phones. Of these applications, 30% are for the use of patients and health professionals and 70% for the general population.2,3 It is estimated that within a few years 65% of mHealth applications will be used for monitoring chronic diseases. In global terms, it is thought that the mHealth business will have a turnover of more than $27 000 million in 2017, with 90% of the market share divided proportionally between Europe, Asia, and North America. However, this figure is small when compared with the indirect benefits of this technology. A report published in May 2011 estimated that the use of data generated by mobile applications (big data) could reduce fraud and improve efficiency to the point of saving €150 000 million per year in the European public sector.4
Comments
Post a Comment