SHB: Type I (EXP): Instrumented Socks for Prediction and Prevention of Acute Decompensated Heart Failure

每年有100多万人因急性失代偿性心力衰竭(ADHF)住院。流体堆积在ADHF的形成中起着重要作用。监测体液状态可以为即将到来的失代偿提供可靠的警告，并为防止住院提供机会。需要一种低成本、非侵入性的设备，能够提供对体液状态和其他相关变量的持续家庭监测，以便可靠地预测ADHF患者即将发生的失代偿。该项目将导致开发和评估仪器袜子，用于跟踪慢性心力衰竭患者的疾病状态。袜子上的薄膜柔性传感器将测量患者的体重、脚踝周长、腿部组织弹性和小腿的血压。这些传感器测量将被用来确定患者是否有更高的急性失代偿风险。袜子的尺寸将被无线传输到家里的电脑，然后传输到医疗提供者。传输的数据将允许卫生专业人员监测患者并决定是否需要干预。通过在家中实现持续的患者监测，预计会有更好的治疗结果、更少的住院和更低的成本。该项目将解决与开发袜子中的传感器相关的几个技术挑战，以便进行可靠的液体状态测量。创新的传感原理将用于测量可穿戴袜子的重量、脚踝周长、组织弹性和小腿血压。这些测量将不需要控制力或位移的施加，也不需要严格的传感器对准。自动测量这些变量的能力将消除依赖患者定期进行这些测量的需要，这已被证明是不可靠的。传感器的基本功能将首先在实验室中使用体外测试进行评估。随后，将使用计划选择的志愿者进行测试，以评估带仪表的袜子的所有尺寸。该项目更广泛的教育活动包括为暑期项目招募本科生，向高中生宣传，以及开发网站以传播该项目的研究成果。

Over 1 million hospitalizations for acute decompensated heart failure (ADHF) occur every year. Fluid accumulation plays an important role in the genesis of ADHF. Monitoring of fluid status can provide a reliable warning of impending decompensation and an opportunity for preventing hospitalization. There is a need for low cost, non invasive devices that can provide continuous home monitoring of fluid status and other related variables in order to reliably predict impending decompensation in ADHF patients. This project will lead to the development and evaluation of instrumented socks for tracking disease status in patients with chronic forms of heart failure. Thin film flexible sensors on the socks will measure patient weight, ankle circumference, leg tissue elasticity, and blood pressure in the lower legs. These sensor measurements will be used to determine if a patient is at increased risk of acute decompensation. Measurements from the socks will be transmitted wirelessly to a computer in the home and then to a medical provider. The transmitted data will allow health professionals to monitor the patient and make decisions on whether intervention is needed. By enabling continuous patient monitoring at home, better treatment outcomes, fewer hospitalizations and lower costs are expected.The project will address several technical challenges related to development of sensors in the socks for making reliable fluid status measurements. Innovative sensing principles will be used to enable measurement of weight, ankle circumference, tissue elasticity and lower leg blood pressure in the wearable socks. These measurements will be made without requiring controlled application of forces or displacements and without requiring strict sensor alignment. The ability to measure these variables automatically will remove the need to depend on patients making these measurements regularly which has been shown to be unreliable. The basic functionality of the sensors will first be evaluated using in-vitro tests in the laboratory. Subsequently, tests with a planned selection of volunteers will be used for evaluation of all the measurements from the instrumented socks. The broader educational activities in the project include recruitment of undergraduate students for summer projects, outreach to high school students and website development for dissemination of research results from the project.