Mobile phone-enabled control of medical care and handicapped assistance

Mobile phones are now playing an ever more crucial role in people's daily lives. They are serving not only as a way of talking and delivering messages, but also for exchanging various information. Nevertheless, the functional limit of the phone is still far from being reached. Among the many promising applications, using mobile phones as an actuating element to control data or devices is useful in quite a few emerging medical care and handicapped assistance settings owing to its wireless communication feature. In this article, selected progresses of mobile phone-enabled controlling have been summarized, with more focus on evaluating its emerging roles in medical care. Several typical applications in the area are illustrated and some potential technical challenges and key issues worthy of pursuit are outlined. The intent of the article is to provide an elementary knowledge for people with different backgrounds, such as electrical or biomedical engineers, as well as people who are working on interdisciplinary areas. It is expected that medical care at any time and anywhere will be possible via the actuation platform provided by the mobile phone and mobile medicine will be pushed forward to a new height in the coming years.