Cars that can monitor your health - Telegraph.co.uk

Ford's system is the thin edge of the wedge, however. While the US is leading research in this area, the amount of time we spend in our cars in Europe makes the driver's seat an ideal place to monitor health signs such as pulse, blood pressure, stress, even blood sugar for signs of incipient diabetes '� not to mention hypochondria. Our ageing population suggests that such research might be well placed. EU figures predict a rise in the proportion of over 65-year-olds in the population from 2010's 17.4 per cent to 29.5 per cent in 2060. Old people suffer more health problems, some of which can affect driving ability, such as diabetes, heart disease and strokes. Ford researchers say that drivers with cardiovascular disease are 23 per cent more likely to be involved in a car accident.

The company's health-monitoring seat came out of research at its European Research Centre in Aachen, Germany. The race-style driver's seat has sensors which detect the heart's electrical impulses and is capable of measuring 95 per cent of drivers for 98 per cent of the time. Dr Achim Lindner, the Ford research centre medical officer, says: 'As always in medicine, the earlier a condition is detected the easier it is to treat and this technology even has the potential to be instrumental in diagnosing conditions drivers were not aware they suffered.'

Another monitoring device is a steering wheel capable of detecting a driver's pulse, oxygen saturation and perspiration. This is the result of a research project from the Munich Technical University in conjunction with BMW. The first of the twin monitors measures infrared reflectance through the driver's fingers to measure heart rate and oxygen saturation; the second measures the skin's electrical conductance, which reveals stress and blood pressure. The data is radioed to a microcontroller, which is displayed on the vehicle's information display.

'We make the medical [monitoring device] as a separate unit,' says Dr Ing Lorenzo D'Angelo, a researcher on the BMW/TUM project. 'Our data is only recorded, not analysed. We don't want the car to say, 'Hey, your blood pressure is too high'.'

Even so, some experts are worried that the technology is moving in the direction of the car acting as a direct medical advisor. Mikael Edvardsson of Volvo's safety electronics and functions department, is cautious. 'We cannot have a situation where the car is the doctor and we are trying to do things that surgeons do in hospital with complicated and expensive machines,' he says.

Both the Aachen seat and the BMW steering wheel are a long way from production and neither are entirely reliable at present. The seat can be fooled by different driver sizes and seating positions, while the steering wheel system requires the driver's hands to be in contact with the sensors at all times. They are also robust versions of what hospital and ambulance patient monitoring systems are already capable of, but they both point to a world where the car could monitor a driver, perhaps one day forming part of an autonomous driving system to allow the elderly or those with a medical history of heart attacks or strokes to stay on the road for longer.

Proponents of the technology point to a rosy future, but there are other issues with in-car medical monitoring. Edvardsson questions how the data will be used. 'The driver needs to trust the car,' he says, 'and we need to explain that security is robust.'

Most driving administrations require a driver to tell them of any pre-existing health conditions. In the UK, drivers are mandated to inform the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) if they suffer arrhythmias or have a pacemaker fitted, but angina, valvular heart disease or a heart murmur are not notifiable. So what if real-time monitoring shows up such issues? Would insurance companies and driving authorities demand access to the data?

Ford's Strumolo is concerned that such fears might prevent the take-up of such technology. 'It is important to assure people that this data isn't being reported,' he says. 'If you have a hypoglycaemic event and tell your doctor, in 18 US states they legally have to notify the state's department of transportation. People could be afraid of losing their licence.'

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