I-Corps: A Wearable Platform for Assessing Respiratory Health

这个I-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发一个可穿戴平台，该平台将增加在临床环境和此类环境之外对呼吸健康数据的访问。虽然呼吸直接受到呼吸系统疾病的影响，但传统的呼吸监测技术只能提供临床环境中呼吸系统健康的简要快照，严重依赖医疗保健专业人员的专业知识。为了改善健康结果，需要非侵入性工具，以便于获得呼吸系统健康数据，增加早期疾病检测的可能性，改善患者监测，并提高远程医疗的有效性。预计这项技术将有利于医疗保健结果，并减轻与呼吸系统疾病相关的经济负担。在服务不足的农村、低收入和少数民族社区，获得专科护理和设施的机会有限，这些好处可能感受最强烈。如果推向市场，这项技术还可能有助于支持美国新兴的柔性混合电子制造业，并可能颠覆防护面罩行业。 这个I-Corps项目是基于开发一个用于呼吸健康监测的可穿戴平台。所提出的技术将柔性电子呼吸健康传感器集成到轻质面罩中。一种可重复使用的电子模块包括到智能电话的无线数据传输。人工智能分析能够对呼吸模式和用户活动进行上下文敏感的评估。智能口罩能够在日常生活条件下无创采集呼吸数据，为AI训练、测试和稳健的模式识别提供丰富的数据集。人工智能功能反过来又将传感器的实用性提升到信号监测之外，以实现自主诊断，用于检测与疾病或用户痛苦相关的异常呼吸。 此外，所提出的平台技术可以改善慢性阻塞性肺疾病（COPD）和睡眠呼吸暂停的早期诊断，保护和监测对森林火灾或烟雾造成的空气污染敏感的脆弱人群，保护和监测危险制造环境中的工人，在COVID或流感病毒爆发期间保护和监测人群，远程医疗的远程患者监测，以及用于康复和缓解压力的呼吸训练。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并且通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of a wearable platform that will increase access to respiratory health data, in both clinical settings and outside such settings. Although breathing is directly impacted by respiratory disease, conventional respiratory monitoring technologies offer only a brief snapshot of respiratory health in a clinical setting, with a strong reliance on the expertise of healthcare professionals. To improve health outcomes, there is a need for non-invasive tools that facilitate access to respiratory health data, increase the likelihood of early disease detection, improve patient monitoring, and enhance the effectiveness of telemedicine. The proposed technology is expected to benefit healthcare outcomes and ease the economic burdens associated with respiratory disease. Such benefits will likely be felt most strongly in underserved rural, low-income, and minority communities with limited access to specialist care and facilities. If brought to market, this technology also may help support the emerging flexible hybrid electronics manufacturing sector in the US and potentially disrupt the protective facemask industry. This I-Corps project is based on the development of a wearable platform for respiratory health monitoring. The proposed technology integrates a flexible electronic respiratory health sensor into a lightweight facemask. A reusable electronics module includes wireless data transmission to a smartphone. Artificial intelligence analysis enables context-sensitive assessment of breathing patterns and user activity. The smart mask enables the non-invasive acquisition of respiratory data under daily life conditions, providing rich data sets for AI training, testing, and robust pattern identification. The AI capabilities, in turn, elevate the utility of the sensors beyond signal monitoring, to enable autonomous diagnostics for detecting anomalous breathing associated with disease or user distress. In addition, the proposed platform technology may improve early diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and sleep apnea, protection and monitoring of vulnerable populations that are sensitive to air pollution caused by forest fires or smog, protection and monitoring of workers in hazardous manufacturing environments, protection and monitoring of populations during viral outbreaks of COVID or flu, remote patient monitoring for telemedicine, and breath training for rehabilitation and stress relief.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.