BACKGROUND
Monitoring human body vitals is critical for accurate diagnosis of diseases and for deciding appropriate treatment and/or therapy methods. In particular, respiration rate and heart rate are of importance for heart and lung diseases. Many vitals monitoring systems have been introduced to get the most accurate results using either contact- or noncontact-based approaches. Although many state-of-the-art systems for the vital signs measurements are based on contact sensors such as probes, chest straps and pulse oximeters, these contact-based sensors are sometimes inconvenient or inappropriate. Consequently, technologies for non-contact monitoring of vital signs were driven by special medical applications such as those that involve patients with delicate or injured skin e.g., pre-term newborns and patients in burn units. Prior art non-contact methods for measuring vital signs include, for example, 3D machine vision method and infrared light, thermal imaging, camera-based techniques and RF detection. However, these existing methods have limitations in terms of detection accuracy, patient privacy and cost. We developed a system and method of measuring certain patient parameters without contacting the patient that overcome limitation of existing technologies.
SUMMARY OF TECHNOLOGY
OSU researchers have developed a new patent-pending non-contact vital signs monitoring system (schematically shown in Fig. 1) that utilizes light-wave sensing (LWS) technology. Designed and implemented using a low-cost light source, photodetector and data acquisition/processing unit and signal processing algorithms, our LWS-based system enables reliable measurements of respiration and heart rate with 94% accuracy, in different scenarios, which is comparable to the state-of-the-art baseline methods such as pulse oximetry and contact-based monitoring. Distinct from all traditional approaches for non-contact vitals monitoring (e.g., RF- and camera imaging-based) and validated by our experimental findings, our new technology provides a viable, powerful, attractive, low-cost and safe method for detection of vital signs.
Fig. 1: System model where the vitals of human body is monitored using LWS.
POTENTIAL AREAS OF APPLICATION AND MAIN ADVANTAGES
COMMERCIAL OPPORTUNITY
Industry reports suggest that real-time health monitoring devices will reach a market value of over $65 billion by 2022. Long-term continuous monitoring of physiological parameters is increasingly important for screening patients with COVID-19, diabetes, heart disease, and sleep apnea, considering the high prevalence of lifestyle-associated disorders (due to sedentary lifestyle). Technology solutions for early detection of fatigue, stress, and anxiety are equally important considering significant healthcare costs and morbidity associated with mental health disorders. We are looking for industry partners to help us develop and commercialize this patent-pending technology.
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