ECE Oral Comprehensive Exam for Doctoral Candidacy by Benjamin Roy Viall

ABSTRACT:
In this research, we introduce a new and novel approach to self-care for patients suffering from chronic heart disease (CHD). This approach provides a full system for patients, consisting of a wireless battery powered health patch, a cell phone environment, and a knowledge engine for data mining/analysis. CHF is a complex malady caused by numerous disorders of the heart and body resulting in a decreased quality of life. Care for current cardiac patients, post-hospitalization, is not uniform often resulting in relapses and early death. Monitoring and involving the patient in self-care has been shown to improve upon the prognosis.

This system will wirelessly collect both physiologic and psychosocial data from the patient using a combination of a custom sensor suite and a cell phone. The collected data will be sent to a back-end knowledge engine (BKE) and a wellness measure will be calculated by the BKE. The BKE will also analyze the collected data and offer interventions to patient whose wellness is not improving. Interventions will offer ways to improve patient health without a doctor’s help.

Biography:
Mr. Benjamin Viall received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. He is currently pursuing his PhD. His Research interests include Sensor Networks, Data Mining, and wireless communications. When not working on his PhD, he works as technical director for local children’s theatre.

NOTE: All ECE Graduate Students are ENCOURAGED to attend.
All interested parties are invited to attend. Open to the public.

Advisor: Dr. Paul J. Fortier
Committee Members: Dr. Liudong Xing, Dr. Honggang Wang, ECE Dept.; Dr. Kristen Sethares, and Dr. Janet Prichard