Hypertension is one of the major killer diseases in the developing countries. Patients suffering from hypertension therefore need regular check-ups and necessary medications on time to avoid complications that often lead to a sudden death. Access to these check-ups poses a lot of challenges due to the location of medical facilities far from the residential areas of some patients. Of more concern is that after travelling the long distance, they have to wait hour-on-end on a queue for their turn to see the medical personnel that is responsible to carry out the check-ups. In the process, they are stressed up and the blood pressure rises the more. This development was studied on 40 hypertension patients whose blood pressure was measured both at home and in a medical facility located far from their home the same day. The differentials in the measurement values prompted a design of an alternative approach of nursing hypertensive patients. To this end, the study proposes a telenursing approach where a patient would be fitted with a wearable sensor-based device and his/her vital signs are captured and sent to a central database from where a nurse could be alerted through a GSM device of any measurement that portends an immediate action. The nurse will then advice the patient on the next line of action of either seeing a doctor immediately or to continue with his/her medications. Further research will implement the framework and compare its results with the results found in this study.
Citation:Okure U. Obot, Kingsley F. Attai and AniebietAbasi S. Obot (2021) Framework for Telenursing Hypertensive Patients in Developing Countries, European Journal of Computer Science and Information Technology, Vol.9, No.4, pp.1-15
Keywords: Hypertension, blood pressure, diastolic, systolic, telenursing
