There may be some relief for 30 million folks soon.  Of that number, about 1/3 are kids!

About what am I talking?   Folks with asthma.  These folks have an ailment that incurs health care costs of about $ 56 billion a year.  In the overall scheme of things, that’s not too much, amounting to about 0.5% of our total health care expenditures.    But, it’s the kids with asthma that create the problem.  Plus many of these kids come from the lower side of the economic strata, which means they fail to obtain treatment, they miss school, etc.

Which is why NCSU (North Carolina State University) has been working on this project.   J. Dieffenderfer (PhD candidate) and Drs. H. Goodell, S. Mills, M. McKnight, S. Yao, F. Lin, E. Beppler, B. Bent, B. Lee, V. Misra, Y. Zhu, O. Oralkan, J. Strohmaier, J. Muth, D. Peden, and A. Bozkurt (principal author) are affiliated with the Nanosystems Engineering Research Center (Advanced Self-Powered Systems of Integrated Sensors and Technologies- ‘ASSIST’) and have an article in press at the IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics.

They termed their system the Health and Environmental Tracker (HET).  It is composed of a series of novel sensor devices that appears like a fitbit wristband.  Basically, the device tracks the wellness of the subjects-  plus it attempts to predict the onset of an asthma attack.

The wristband contains sensors that track movement and environmental factors such as volatile organic compounds, ozone, ambient humidity, and temperature.  There’s a chest patch that monitors the heart and respiratory rates, blood oxygenation, and discerns if there is any wheezing in the lungs.  Oh, and there’s a non-wearable component- a handheld spirometer (into which the subjects breathe several times daily) to discern lung function.  All of these sensors and devices communicate wirelessly with a computer, where the custom software collects and records the data.

The spirometer replaces the peak flow (of air) meter that most asthmatics use to monitor their lung function and by which they adjust their asthma medication dosage.  Peak flow data is not accurate enough to afford the HET the ability to predict when an asthma attack may be imminent; hence, they have integrated the use of a  new spirometer device.

But, it’s not the unique sensors or even the spirometer that is key to the success of the HET.  It’s the fact that the power consumption is very low- in the sub-milliwatt range.  The wristband consumes about 0.83 milliwatts, the chest patch a little more (0.96 milliwatts), with the spirometer uses about 0.01.  This tremendous reduction in power demands (down from about ½ to 1 watts) means the device can have a long battery life, which is critical for the device to provide utility to the subjects.

This summer the team plans to extend the proof of concept using a limited number of patients to discern relationships between ambient air quality and the subject’s asthma response.  Given the success of this extension, the device could be available for general use within five years or so.

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