PMC8761515_01
VITASENIOR-MT architecture overview
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PMC8761515_01_10209_2021_859_Fig1_HTML.jpg
Fig1
TV set for interaction with direct end-users, a wireless sensor network (WSN) for environmental data collection, a cloud infrastructure following a microservice and fog-computing architecture and a web portal for interaction with formal and informal caregivers. The overall architecture is shown in Fig. 1, and the functional parts concerning user-interaction will be described in the following sub-sections highlighting the functionality, reliability and usability of the provided services (technical implementation details regarding the Cloud infrastructure, security and privacy mechanisms are not included in this paper, as they were already reported in). If the user receives a notification at the lower right corner of the TV while watching TV (see Fig. 1), the TV also toggles to telehealth mode by pressing the key "OK" and shows the notification screen.
a End-user interacting with the VITASENIOR-MT home-care platform to measure the blood pressure; b keys of the TV remote used for interaction with the TV application
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PMC8761515_01_10209_2021_859_Fig2_HTML.jpg
Fig2
The interaction of the direct end-user with the telehealth system is done through the TV's remote control. This feature was a key design and implementation requirement of the VITASENIOR-MT system, which aims to be familiar, functional, easy to use and requiring the minimum number of steps as possible to perform the telehealth tasks. The end-user accesses all features of the home-care platform through 7 keys of the remote, namely, "OK", "L/R/U/D Arrows", "Back" and "1", as depicted in Fig. 2. The "1" key is used to toggle between TV and telehealth modes, by user's own initiative.