Recent technical advancements in low-power integrated circuits, ultra low-power RF (radio frequency) technology, wireless communications and micro sensors allowed the realization of a futuristic health care system called Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs). This new type of technology hold much promise for future patient health monitoring. A body area network wirelessly connects independent nodes (e.g. medical devices, earphones, sensors, actuators) attached to the body surface, implanted into

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... issues/body, or dispersed in the clothing for applications in home/health care, sports, entertainment, defense, ambient intelligence, pervasive computing and many other areas. These sensors offer promising applications in areas such as real time health monitoring, interactive gaming and consumer electronics. WBAN does not compel the patient to stay in the hospital thereby giving much physical mobility. This paper presents an overview on the various aspects of WBAN including the importance of context awareness in body area networks, applications of WBANs, major security requirements for data security and privacy in WBAN and various research challenges existing in this area Index Terms-Wireless body area network, WBAN, body area network, real time health monitoring, bio sensors, context-awareness, data security and privacy.