SpiroSmart iPhone App Accurately Estimates Lung Air Volume (video) 42inShare Spirometers are commonly used devices that help physicians diagnose and track the progress of various lung conditions. Patients are even using the devices at home to measure their own lung air volume, helping clinicians keep an eye on their disease. Researchers at the University of Washington, UW Medicine and Seattle Children’s hospital were wondering whether it would be possible to indirectly derive air volume measurements from audio recordings of people breathing.
Turns out that by modeling the trachea and vocal tract, the team was able to develop an algorithm that translates audio into air volume with surprising accuracy. Moreover, a standard iPhone has a sufficient microphone to do the recordings and certainly enough computational horsepower to immediately provide the results. According to a study involving 52 people, the SpiroSmart app was within 5.1% accuracy of a commercial spirometer. Press release: App lets you monitor lung health using only a smartphone. App lets you monitor lung health using only a smartphone. Public release date: 18-Sep-2012 [ Print | E-mail Share ] [ Close Window ] Contact: Hannah Hickeyhickeyh@uw.edu 206-543-2580University of Washington People suffering from asthma or other chronic lung problems are typically only able to get a measure of their lung function at the doctor's office a few times a year by blowing into a specialized piece of equipment.
More frequent testing at home could detect problems earlier, potentially avoiding emergency room visits and hospitalization. A new tool from researchers at the University of Washington, UW Medicine and Seattle Children's hospital lets people monitor their lung function at home or on the go simply by blowing into their smartphones. "There's a big need in the pulmonary community to make testing cheaper and more convenient," said lead researcher Shwetak Patel, a UW assistant professor of computer science and engineering and of electrical engineering.
"The tests are very promising," said co-author Dr. . [ Print | E-mail. Apple’s iPhone connector change to drive health devices to Bluetooth Smart. Tags: Apple Lightning connector dock | Bluetooth medical devices | Bluetooth Smart | Glooko | mobile medical peripherals | wireless health devices | wireless medical devices | At this week’s iPhone 5 announcement, Apple confirmed something of an open secret among those companies that make health peripherals for iOS devices: The longstanding 30-pin connector dock has been swapped out for a new slimmer, redesigned connector dock that Apple calls Lightning.
Of course, an increasing variety of medical devices have received FDA clearance over the past few years to connect to the iPhone (and other iOS devices) via that 30-pin connector dock. Apple is making an adapter available that will help with the transition so 30-pin connector compatible devices will still be able to connect to the newest iOS devices, but as Apple notes in the product page for its adapter, not all devices will be supported. Apple’s announcement this week means more smartphone medical peripherals will cut the cord.
iBG Star review. In July I will be using some of my leave to go back to Bolivia to carry out further staff training at our diabetes centre and to help plan the development of the centre. A current problem faced at the diabetes centre is access to insulin. The Bolivian government provides free insulin to a patient with Type 1 Diabetes, providing that the patient has routine (but rather detailed) blood tests every four months. Some of the patients are unable to afford the cost of these blood tests and as result have been unable to receive their insulin. It is a constant worry for our director of nursing that one of the youngsters will run out of insulin and not get to the centre in time for an emergency supply. I could not help but think about these dilemmas faced by patients thousands of miles away, as I was chatting to a patient here in the UK this week.
iPhone BP monitor Withings v. iHealth. It is plainly obvious from our website name that there are few things that we at iMedicalApps find more exciting than discovering new apps that can augment our medical practice. But what I often find even more exciting than medical apps are medical peripherals. The idea of pulling out a device and attaching it to a smartphone for medical use is very exciting. With peripherals on the horizon that can diagnose cataracts and measure oxygen saturation, the future is certainly bright. And with the release of the iHealth and Withings Blood Pressure Monitors for the iPhone and iPad to consumers, it certainly feels like that future has arrived.
Hardware: While these devices aren’t quite as advanced as tricorders from Star Trek yet, they certainly feel like premium products. The iHealth’s full name is actually iHealth Blood Pressure Dock and for a good reason – it comes with an iPhone/iPad dock. Both devices fit comfortably around the arm, and are fairly easy to put on. Software: Home vs. Diagnose Ear Infections At Home. Using your smartphone to check for ear infections could reduce trips to the pediatrician's office. Cameras in smartphones will inevitably replace nearly all portable cameras and camcorders, but could they also make basic medical instruments obsolete?
A startup called CellScope plans to do just that by turning smartphones into digital first aid kits. To kickoff its campaign, the company is developing an iPhone attachment that turns the smartphone into an otoscope, providing a magnified view of the middle ear. Why does the company want to make it easy for doctor’s and parents to peer inside their kids’ heads? Because ear infections are the number 1 reason children are taken to see pediatricians and often why they end up in the emergency room. According to the , 93 percent of children before the age of 7 will have an ear infection and 6-8 percent will suffer with frequent infections, defined as 3 or more in a 12-month period. Check out the CellScope founders talking about their tech: Diagnosing eye injuries in the ED. A recent study in the Archives of Opthalmology had two Ophthalmologists compare high resolution images of eyes from a standard desktop and an iPhone. They reached the conclusion that the iPhone images were of higher quality and were easy to see.
The researchers noted that sending a high quality image to an Opthalmologist could be used to diagnose certain eye diseases in patients, even when one isn’t readily available. The study was conducted by Dr. Valerie Biousse from Emory University. She and her colleagues collected data on 350 patients with a headache, changes in eyesight and other signs of vision problems who came to the Emergency Department for treatment. These patients had pictures of the interior of their eyes, like the retina photographed with an iPhone.
“Two ophthalmologists looked at those photos and rated their quality on a typical desktop computer and later assessed 100 of the images on an iPhone. Dr. Source: Chicago Tribune. NETRA, Smartphone - Eye Test. Costing only $2 to make, the NETRA could bring vision testing to parts of the world where they are up till now unavailable. About two billion people worldwide suffer from visual impairments brought on by refractive errors when light entering the eye isn’t properly focused. Uncorrected common refractive errors like nearsightedness and farsightedness are the second leading cause of blindness in the world, accounting for 2 percent of the world’s population. Recently I spoke with the team at MIT Media Lab that has created an impressive device that gives people in developing countries access to much-needed vision testing.
The Near-Eye Tool for Refractive Assessment, or NETRA, does the job of conventional – and much more expensive – testing equipment. All you need is NETRA, which costs about $2 to make, and a smartphone. Until now. Pamplona also told me he and his colleagues have used the technology in NETRA to detect cataracts, the leading cause of blindness in the world.
Smartphone utilisation by physicians. Its no secret that the smartphone is becoming as much of a staple of the physician’s toolkit as, say, the stethoscope. Several studies and surveys have sought to quantify this trend among practicing physicians. Recently, a group of researchers released the results of a survey of smartphone utilization among residents in ACGME (Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education) and the results provide interesting insights into what the future may hold. We have previously looked at reports on the rate of adoption of smartphones for nurses and practicing physicians. While there is a fair amount of variability, such as between physicians of different specialties, this survey demonstrates that we can expect even higher rates of adoption in the future. Approximately 8,353 surveys were sent out electronically to residency and fellowship program directors for further distribution among their faculty, fellows, and housestaff.
Another interesting finding was the difference between specialties. StethoCloud Attachment. Stethocloud takes a relatively simple approach to replace stethoscopes and targets a common childhood killer. What do you get when you combine smartphones, cloud computing, and digital medicine? A new era of healthcare that is bringing powerful technological innovations rapidly to the world. For example, take StethoCloud, a cloud-based service that turns a Windows smartphone into a digital stethoscope. Created by four students from the University of Melbourne, the goal of the team is to enable early diagnosis of an overlooked childhood killer: pneumonia. And it’s expected to cost only $20.
Amazingly, the project only started at the beginning of this year with the first prototype built in February in just two weeks. The StethoCloud team presents their cloud-based service at Microsoft's Imagine Cup. StethoCloud works like many apps: collect data from specific sources, process these data with algorithms, and interpret the results according to an established standard. [Media: Vimeo] “Stethocloud” with Windows Phones. With it’s home base advantage, the Australian team is a hot contender at Microsoft’s Imagine Cup 2012 worldwide finals in Sydney, trying to decrease the number one cause of childhood deaths with a Windows Phone-powered health solution.
This afternoon team Stethocloud presented their first presentation to a packed room of judges and supporters, including but not limited to many of Microsoft Australia’s developer evangelism team and Pip Marlow, Managing Director of Microsoft Australia. Their 30-minute presentation was very similar to their Australian finals presentation which I saw a few months ago. The problem they are tackling is pneumonia, which kills nearly 2 million children due to a lack of early detection. Many of the affected are in developing countries. Their solution is centred around a custom “stethomic” stethoscope they built that plugs straight into an ubiquitous 3.5mm audio jack of most phones.
You can find more photos of their presentation on my Flickr here. iPhone Pulse Oximeter: Zensorium's Tinke app connects to an iPhone and measures heart rate, respiration, and blood oxygen. Welcome to the consumerization of health, where the everyday patient can find possible diagnoses, learn the human anatomy, monitor sleep, and converse with physicians, sometimes over high-definition videoconference. New health-oriented gadgets and mobile apps attack Consumer Electronics Show attendees every year like a virus, and this year is no exception, starting with Zensorium's Tinke, a device that monitors pulse, respiration, and blood oxygen levels.
There's nothing particularly new here: any Walgreens or CVS sells inexpensive pulse oximeters for about $25. Tinke happens to make one with a 30-pin iPhone connector which manages the signal processing from device to phone. It's also super thin, about three inches square, and includes two sensing windows to take its measurements from a user's thumb--two LEDs with different wavelengths react to blood volume changes. [ What's new at CES? Smartphone use spreads MRSA (risk) From Blackberry to iPhone. Last week I retired my Blackberry Bold, removed myself from the Blackberry Enterprise Server, and began using an iPhone 4S as my mobile email, web, and telecommunications platform. This was not a casual decision. I've used Blackberry products since 1998. The original Blackberry 850 was named one of the top 50 technologies of the past 50 years. I receive a wireless communication approximately every 30 seconds from 7am-7pm every day.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays I receive over 1500 emails per 24 hour period. These communications are filled with media - documents to read, presentations to review, websites to access, and streaming video. I'm not suggesting this is healthy or sane, but it is the reality of communications today. The iPhone 4S gives me a touch screen user interface to scroll, zoom, and manage my incoming messages. I'm still in the learning stage, so my ability to type on a touch screen is still not quite as nimble as on the Blackberry keyboard. RIM has been an innovator. Smartphone & Microscopes Could Change Global Health. To diagnose a disease like tuberculosis, you need two things: a good microscope and someone who understands medicine.
Andrew Miller spent his senior year of college designing a device that makes the first component more accessible — a portable, battery-powered $240 microscope similar to devices that retail for as much as $40,000. But even as Rice University began field tests with the prototype, he questioned the impact it could make in global health. "I was inventing this new, cool tech, but I also knew that I wasn't solving the problem," he says.
"You also need to have people there to use the microscope. " Bringing healthcare providers to developing countries is not a likely project for a medical device engineer. To make diagnosing from a distance more viable, he and his co-founder Tess Bakke developed a simple plastic smartphone holder called Skylight that turns any microscope into a camera. Along the way, they noticed another potential application for the device in schools. Detects E. coli in food samples. Cell phones have already revolutionized communication, and now they might one day do the same for food safety. A research group working under Aydogan Ozcan at UCLA has created a cell phone attachment that can calculate the concentration of E. coli in a liquid sample. The device works similarly to a fluorescence microscope, pumping the sample into a series of small tubes treated with E. coli antibodies, then measuring the excitement of quantum dots (small fragments of semiconductors) placed around them with the phone's camera and an additional lens.
From this excitement, researchers can calculate the concentration of E. coli in the sample. The method was tested successfully both in a specially-prepared solution and in a glass of milk. Ozcan's research group has been working for some time on scaling down biomedical technologies to fit on phones. NASA nanosensor adapted for disease detection. Capture & send malaria microscopy. Diagnose Malaria and other Diseases.
SkyLight Connects Microscopes To Smartphones. iPhone Geiger counter. Mobile phone with radiation detector. Remote-Controlled Tripod For iPhone. Train patients with balance problems.