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Ms. Tan Hui Keng, a 71-year-old woman with heart failure, must go to the hospital emergency every time she starts to run out of steam. This happens about twice a year.
Soon, a home-based device may be able to quickly tell patients like Mrs. Tan if their shortness of breath is caused by potential heart failure or if another condition is at stake.
This device verifies the accumulation of fluid in the lungs, causing shortness of breath and one of the first symptoms of heart failure. It was developed by a team from the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and the Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH), which introduced the prototype yesterday.
Patients simply place a small sensor on their chest or back.
This captures the sounds of their lungs and sends them via a mobile application to a server in the cloud.
The server has an artificial intelligence algorithm that determines whether the patient's lungs are cleared or if a fluid is accumulating there.
The whole process takes 10 seconds, said Associate Professor Ser Wee from the NTU School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering.
The device can also help reduce the number of admissions to the hospital, said associate professor David Foo, head of cardiology at TTSH.
Current methods of detecting fluid accumulation in the lungs involve either a doctor or a stethoscope, who listens to the patient's breathing – which may be subjective – either a chest X-ray or a CT scan, which are expensive and time consuming, he added.
According to Professor Foo, this device will benefit 30% to 40% of the approximately 5,000 patients admitted to hospitals here for heart failure each year.
According to a study conducted among 86 patients with TTSH between 2012 and 2015, the device was shown to have a precision rate of over 92% for the identification of patients with fluid accumulation. in the lungs.
The team has filed a patent for the device. He has also been approached by a major pharmaceutical company as well as by multinational and local healthcare companies for possible collaborations.
Prof Ser said the device could cost patients between $ 100 and $ 200.
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