Smartphones can become health monitors
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Led by Ki H. Chon, PhD, professor and head of biomedical engineering at WPI, a team of researchers created an app that can measure the heart rate, rhythm, respiration rate and blood oxygen saturation using a phone’s built-in camera. The researchers reported that the software can read vital signs as accurately as standard medical monitors currently in clinical use.
“This gives a patient the ability to carry an accurate physiological monitor anywhere, without additional hardware beyond what’s already included in many consumer mobile phones,” the authors wrote. “One of the advantages of mobile phone monitoring is that it allows patients to make baseline measurements at any time, building a database that could allow for improved detection of disease states.”
Users place their fingertip over the lens of the camera and, as light penetrates the skin and the camera captures pulsing blood, an application analyzes the video clips. The app can correlate shifts in color of reflected light with changes in a person’s vital signs.
Chon et al tested the accuracy of the device by comparing its results with those from standard monitors for respiration, pulse rate, heart rhythm and blood oxygen content.
The technology was developed for a Droid phone, but is easily adaptable to any smartphone with a built-in camera, according to the Chon, who added that the application could also be used to detect atrial fibrillation (AF).
“We are building that application now and we have started a preliminary clinical study with colleagues at UMass Medical School to use the smartphone to detect AF,” Chon said in a statement. “Imagine a technician in a nursing home who is able to go into a patient’s room, place the patient’s finger on the camera of a tablet and in that one step capture all their vital signs. We believe there are many applications for this technology to help patients monitor themselves and to help clinicians care for their patients.”
Chon and colleagues' findings will be published in the journal IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering.