Wireless box developed to detect COVID-19 patients’ activity and breathing at home: MIT
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has presented an unprecedented challenge for medical care employees. One of the major challenges is problems concerning social distancing, which need unique methods for diagnosing and treating diseases.
For people who have already tested positive, staying at home is the best option to avoid the overcrowded hospital system in several locations and to avoid transmitting the virus to others. The question, after that, is how physicians and nurses, can continue to offer medical care with the pronounced restrictions of telemedicine remotely. The device can detect when a patient is having trouble breathing, and that info can be accessed by a doctor remotely.
This week MIT’s CSAIL gave a ray of hope on continuous tests it has been performing on a new tool designed to keep tabs on patients in their residence. The opt-in system superficially appears like a Wi-Fi router, placed on the patient’s wall and the device is named as Emerald.
The wireless box developed to detect COVID-19 patients‘ activity uses wireless signals to identify various activities including breathing, patient movements, and sleep patterns. Emerald is able to differentiate between different individuals to track movement using artificial intelligence.
Currently, the system is being evaluated at the Heritage Assisted Living center outside of Boston. William McGrory, the facility’s mental health chief said in a release, “It’s clear that, with these high-risk elderly patients, they would significantly take advantage of us having the ability to passively gather clinical information in overtime when it is not feasible to interface with each person directly.”
A CSAIL representative told TechCrunch on a question – why a wireless system is special to a simple wearable’ said that the nature of the innovation is technology is “set it and forget it,” requiring no interaction on the patient’s part after initial established.
Author: Sruthi S
