Emerging Technologies [wireless communication systems for implantable medical devices]

The reference to wireless medical telemetry includes measurement and recording of physiological parameters and other patient-related information via radiated electromagnetic signals. This paper discusses matters concerning the design of such wireless systems and review several existing and future clinical applications. The potential advantages of remote monitoring of implantable devices could include timely monitoring of clinical events and symptoms, a reduction in routine patient follow-up, closer monitoring of device longevity that may extend usage, and reduced patient transport costs. The development of new diagnostics techniques could highly benefit from the wide deployment of wireless solutions as data computation and analysis tasks could be seamlessly shared between the implanted devices and their paired external appliances.