Wearable System Helps Predict Asthma Attacks

A new study describes an integrated, wearable system that monitors the user’s environment and other physical attributes, with the goal of predicting and preventing asthma attacks.

Developed at North Carolina State University (NC State, Raleigh, USA) and the University of North Carolina (UNC, Chapel Hill, USA), the Health and Environmental Tracker (HET) system incorporates a host of novel sensing devices integrated into a wristband, as well as an adhesive patch that is placed on the chest which includes sensors that track the patient’s movement, heart rate, respiratory rate, amount of oxygen in the blood, skin impedance, and wheezing.

The wristband focuses largely on environmental factors, monitoring volatile organic compounds and ozone in the air, as well as ambient humidity and temperature. The wristband also includes sensors to monitor motion, heart rate, and the amount of oxygen in the blood. The system also includes one non-wearable component - a spirometer, which patients breathe into several times a day to measure lung function. Data from all of the sensors is transmitted wirelessly to a computer, where custom software collects and records the data. The study was published on May 26, 2016, in IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics.

“Right now, people with asthma are asked to use a peak flow meter to measure lung function on a day-to-day basis. That information is used to inform the dosage of prescription drugs used in their inhalers,” said lead author James Dieffenderfer, a PhD student in the joint biomedical engineering program at NC State and UNC. “For HET, we developed a customized self-powered spirometer, which collects more accurate information on lung function and feeds that data into the system.”

“Our goal was to design a wearable system that could track the wellness of the subjects, and in particular provide the infrastructure to predict asthma attacks so that the users could take steps to prevent them by changing their activities or environment,” said senior author assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering Alper Bozkurt, PhD, of NC State. “Once we have that data, the center can begin developing software that will track user data automatically and give users advance warning of asthma attacks.”

In asthmatics, the latent inflammation of the bronchial tubes generally spreads long before the patients actually feel anything. If the inflammation is intense, the air passages constrict and the patient has an asthma attack. The attacks can be so serious that the patient has to be hospitalized, which is why many asthma sufferers regularly take anti-inflammatory medication. Previously, the only way to detect impending asthma attacks was to conduct pulmonary examinations to determine if the patient’s breath contained heightened levels of nitrous monoxide (NO), which signal such an attack.

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