Acute and permanent monitoring of infectious patients using a contactless, multispectral, optical measuring system

新型冠状病毒SARS-CoV-2被确定为一种被称为冠状病毒病(新冠肺炎)的呼吸道疾病的病因。SARS-CoV-2通过呼吸吸入病毒携带者呼出的空气中含有病毒的气雾剂或飞沫而传播。因此，除了佩戴口鼻罩和保持足够的安全距离外，避免不必要的个人接触是最重要的感染控制策略之一。在病程处于稳定阶段后，患有新冠肺炎的患者可能会出现血液中日益严重的、危及生命的血氧饱和度不足(SpO2)。如果氧疗失败，可能会导致必要的呼吸机治疗，甚至使用肺替代手术。然而，重症监护和监测病房的床位容量有限。因此，对于病情稳定的新冠肺炎患者，密切监测生命体征是很重要的，以便尽早发现危急病程。只有这样，才能确保尽早从普通病房转到重症监护室，并在持续监测下启动上述行动。在封锁期间，减少了对慢性病患者的定期检查，以将感染风险降至最低。与此同时，这些患者表示，由于担心感染，不参加计划中的体检，甚至不参加紧急医疗会诊。远程医疗方法的使用提供了很高的创新潜力。临床研究表明，对患有心力衰竭等慢性疾病的患者进行远程医疗管理可以非常成功地减少死亡率和住院时间，并提高生活质量，并已被证明能够为医疗保健系统节省成本。目前没有足够的数据对远程医疗应用在流行病或大流行背景下的益处进行循证评估。即使有很高的技术创新潜力，也必须注意确保这些解决方案的开发不会没有考虑到用户。该项目的目标是实现一种基于非接触式测量生命参数(血氧饱和度、体温、呼吸频率、脉搏)的微型传感器系统。开发一种用于持续、非接触式监测生命参数的传感器系统，不仅能够及早发现最初病情稳定的新冠肺炎患者的严重恶化，而且还可以在家庭环境中对其他感染风险增加的患者进行优化护理。生命参数的动态变化可能表明健康状况恶化。早期发现可以通过优化个体化治疗来防止住院治疗。在需要住院的情况下，通过非接触式监测，可以最大限度地减少个人接触，从而减少来自或向医务人员传播感染的可能性。

The novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 was identified as the cause of a respiratory disease known as coronavirus disease (Covid-19). SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted by respiratory uptake of virus-containing aerosols or droplets from the exhaled air of virus carriers. Therefore, in addition to wearing a mouth-nose cover and maintaining a sufficient safety distance, avoiding unnecessary personal contact is one of the most important infection control strategies. After a stable phase in the course of the disease, patients suffering from COVID-19 can suffer from an increasing, life-threatening lack of oxygen saturation (SpO2) in the blood. If oxygen therapy fails, this can lead to necessary ventilator therapy or even the use of lung replacement procedures. However, bed capacities of intensive care and monitoring units are limited. In stable patients suffering from COVID-19, it is therefore important to closely monitor vital signs in order to detect a critical course as early as possible. Only this ensures an early transfer from the normal ward to an intensive care unit with initiation of the above mentioned actions under continuous monitoring. During lock-down, the regular check-ups of patients with chronic diseases were reduced in order to minimize the risk of infection. At the same time, those patients stated not to attend planned medical check-ups or even urgent medical consultations for fear of infection. The use of telemedical methods offers a high innovatory potential. Clinical studies have shown that telemedical management of patients with chronic diseases such as heart failure can be very successful in reducing mortality and hospital stays as well as improving quality of life and have been shown to be able to generate cost savings for the healthcare system. There is currently insufficient data for an evidence-based assessment of the benefit of telemedical applications in the context of an epidemic or pandemic. Even if there is a high technical innovation potential, care must be taken to ensure that these solutions are not developed without the users in mind. The aim of the project is to realize a miniaturized sensor system based on contactless determination of vital parameters (oxygen saturation, body temperature, respiratory rate, pulse). The development of a sensor system for the continuous, contactless monitoring of vital parameters would not only enable the early detection of a critical deterioration of initially stable COVID-19 patients, but could also lead to an optimized care of other patients with an increased risk of infection in the home based setting. Dynamic changes in vital parameters could indicate a worsening of health status. Early detection could prevent hospitalization by optimizing individual therapies. In case of a necessary hospitalization, personal contact and thus a possible transmission of infection from or to medical personnel could be minimized by contactless monitoring.