Monitoring Home Hemodialysis Using IoT

Abstract

A person with chronic kidney disease have a glomerular filtration rate less than 15 and needs dialysis when they lose about 80 to 90 percent of their kidney function. Hemodialysis is the most common type of dialysis treatment and is carried out to filter the blood stream using an artificial kidney. Monitoring patients during dialysis, offers opportunities to embrace hemodialysis therapies with greater confidence and the potential to obtain better clinical outcomes. Generally, IoT is considered as inter connecting computing devices or objects to the Internet and controls those objects by exchanging data between them. Taking the capability of IoT technology into account, it is possible to overcome the difficulties faced by unstable patients in consulting a doctor and visiting the clinic physically on a regular basis. Sensors are used to monitor the physical parameters of the patients (blood pressure, temperature and pulse rate).The tubing of the hemodialysis machine is regularly monitored for blood leakage and air bubbles in the blood stream. The data from the sensors are continuously sent (in order of kilobytes) to the cloud server in real time via internet connectivity. The doctor can monitor the health condition of the patient by visiting the website connected. In case of any abnormality, the doctor in concern and the patients family is alerted through a buzzer and an SMS. If the patient requires any emergency assistance, then the process of dialysis is stopped and the nearby ambulance service is intimated immediately through wi-fi