Patient, take a stethoscope!
A tablet microphone for diagnostics will soon appear in hospitals
However, such tools do not always provide absolutely accurate information, moreover, in many cases it is simply inconvenient and causes discomfort to the patient. That's why MIT introduced a new technology using uncontrolled sensors to monitor heart rate and respiration from inside the gastrointestinal tract.We've seen unmanaged "pill cameras" that can transmit HD video from inside the body, including one already approved in the U.S. by the Department of Food and Drug Administration, but this new sensor works by calculating heartbeat and breathing by simply listening.
"Through the characterization of the acoustic wave recorded from various parts of the gastrointestinal tract, we found that we could measure the heart rate and respiratory rate with good accuracy," says Giovanni Traverso of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the lead authors of the document, which will describe the proof of conceptuality of the device (in a press release from MIT A new way to monitor vital signs – VM).
In fact, the device is an extremely tiny microphone encased in a silicone capsule, so that the patient can easily swallow this "listening tablet".
"Using the same sensor, we can collect the sounds of the heart and lungs," says Albert Swistoun of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a member of the team: "This is one of the advantages of our approach – we can use one sensor to get two different layers of information."
The silicone "tablet" also contains electronics for sound processing. Isolating the distinct sound waves of the heart and breathing, from each other and from other background noises created by the body. It also sends radio signals to an external receiver, which must be within a radius of 3 meters (10 feet) from the patient.
Naturally, the device will be able to stay in the patient's body for one or two days. Then you will have to swallow a new pill to continue monitoring or stop such diagnostics.
The researchers hope that the sensor can improve the ways of assessing injuries and chronic diseases of patients, and MIT also wants to use such sensors to monitor the condition of soldiers in the field or to improve athletic training. In the future, it is planned to design similar sensors that could diagnose heart diseases, and perhaps in the future create a device that not only detects, but can also treat them.
"We hope that one day we will be able to detect certain molecules or pathogens to deliver an antibiotic, for example," says Traverso.
The development paper was published in the journal PLOS One (Traverso et al., Physiological Status Monitoring via the Gastrointestinal Tract – VM).
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23.11.2015