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

每年有超过100万人因急性失代偿性心力衰竭（ADHF）住院。体液蓄积在ADHF的发生中起重要作用。监测体液状态可以对即将发生的失代偿提供可靠的警告，并为预防住院提供机会。为了可靠地预测ADHF患者即将到来的失代偿，需要一种低成本、无创的设备，可以提供连续的家庭流体状态监测和其他相关变量。该项目将开发和评估用于跟踪慢性心力衰竭患者疾病状态的仪器袜子。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血压。这些传感器测量将用于确定患者是否处于急性失代偿的风险增加。袜子的测量数据将通过无线传输到家中的电脑，然后再发送给医疗服务提供者。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。通过在家中对患者进行持续监测，有望实现更好的治疗效果、更少的住院治疗和更低的成本。该项目将解决与袜子传感器开发相关的若干技术挑战，以进行可靠的流体状态测量。创新的传感原理将用于测量可穿戴袜子中的体重、脚踝周长、组织弹性和小腿血压。这些测量不需要控制力或位移的应用，也不需要严格的传感器校准。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，这些测量已被证明是不可靠的。传感器的基本功能将首先在实验室使用体外测试进行评估。随后，计划选择的志愿者将进行测试，以评估仪器袜子的所有测量值。项目中更广泛的教育活动包括招收本科生参加暑期项目、向高中生推广和开发网站以传播项目的研究成果。

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.