Communications of the ACM
Algorithm Interprets Breathing Difficulties to Aid in Medical Care
A new algorithm can interpret patients' breathing patterns to help medical providers understand what is happening in their lungs.
Credit: Scott Feldstein/Flickr
North Carolina State University (NCSU) researchers, working as part of a larger project to develop wearable smart medical sensors, say they have developed an efficient algorithm that can interpret patients' breathing patterns to give medical providers information about what is happening in their lungs.
"Now we've developed an algorithm that can assess the onset time, pitch, and magnitude (or volume) of wheezing sounds to give healthcare professionals information about the condition of the lungs," which can be used to help doctors make more informed decisions about diagnosis and treatment, says NCSU professor Hamid Krim.
The algorithm was developed to work with wearable technology, and the researchers hope it can ultimately be used to continuously assess the sound of a patient's breathing over time. A potential future system would have sensors that monitor breathing transmit information to a smart device. The data is fed into the algorithm, which determines if there is a breathing problem. The smart device then can notify the patient and their medical provider.
"We're currently weighing whether to modify the sensors so that they can run the algorithm and transmit only if there is a problem, or to maintain the current approach of having the sensor transmit all of the data so that the smart device runs the algorithm," Krim says.
From NCSU News
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