Browsing Category: Monitoring

Simple, rapid “tricorder” vital sign monitoring

Johns Hopkins researchers  have developed a “tricorder” that quickly picks up vital signs from a patient’s lips and fingertip. MouthLab could replace bulky monitors and gather more data during  an ambulance, emergency room, doctor’s office or home assessment. Heart rate, blood pressure, temperature, breathing rate, blood oxygen and a basic ECG are measured.   Early […]

Smartphone fluid sensors to detect pregnancy, STDs, diabetes

Kort Bremer and Bernhard Roth at the Hanover Centre for Optical Technologies are developing lab-on-a-chip devices for smartphones to monitor blood, urine, saliva, sweat or breath.  This could enable phone based detection and monitoring of pregnancy, STDs, or diabetes, among other applications. The surface plasmon resonance sensors  detect biomolecular interactions when polarized light strikes an electrically conducting surface […]

Car-based heart, brain activity monitoring

“Sixth Sense” by Jaguar/LandRover attempts to monitor a driver’s heart rate, respiration and  brain activity to identify stress, fatigue and lack of concentration. The  XJ “wellness seat” analyzes heart rate and breathing, has  touchscreens that predict which button a user wants to press with fingers mid-air, and has a vibrating  accelerator pedal that communicates hazards. […]

Airplane seat sensors monitor physical, emotional states

FlightBeat, designed by TU Delft students, uses  airplane seat integrated heart rate sensors to monitor the physical and emotional state of passengers. Data is transmitted wirelessly to the crew, and presented on a color-coded seat map showing which passengers need attention.  Health information can also be sent to physicians or family members on the ground. The goal […]

Home-based autism therapies

The MICHELANGELO project creates home-based solutions for assessing and treating autism, including: Pervasive, sensor-based technologies to perform physiological measurements such as heart rate, sweat index and body temperature Camera-based systems to monitor observable behaviors and record brain responses to natural environment stimuli Algorithms allowing for the characterization of stimulus-specific brainwave anomalies These technologies will allow for […]

Sensor probe to prevent hospital pressure ulcers

GE and the US Dept of Veterans Affairs have developed a multi sensor probe to detect the earliest signs of pressure ulcer formation. The device combines computer vision with motion detection, thermal profiling, image classification, 3-D object reconstruction and vapor detection to identify patients at risk and improve treatment. Hospitals generally advise caregivers to turn […]

Smartphone tests detect Parkinson’s

In a recent study,  MIT Media Lab‘s  Max Little used machine learning tools to indicate early Parkinson’s Disease in a group of smartphone users.  Phones were given to Parkinson’s patients and a healthy control group. The built in accelerometer enabled Little to distinguish between those with and with out the disease with  99% accuracy.  The detection method relied […]