New mobile application can measure respiratory rate in children 6 times faster than the manual method -
A new mobile application developed by researchers at the Research Institute child & Family (CFRI) at BC children's Hospital and the University of British Columbia can measure respiratory rate in children almost six times faster than the standard manual method.
According to results published this month, RRate can measure respiratory rate reliably in an average of 9.9 seconds. At present, health workers generally measure the breathing rate by counting the breaths of a patient for 60 seconds using a stopwatch.
"mobile phones countries are changing the way we deliver health care, especially in rural areas and developing countries, where access to medical devices is limited," says Dr. Walter Karlen, who co-led the study with Dr. Heng Gan. "With this application, we can provide health care workers with little steps faster and more accurate resources to help them make better decisions, and give them more time with their patients."
Dr. Karlen is a UBC Postdoctorant. At the time of this study, Dr. Gan was Clinical Research Fellow. Both work with Dr. Mark Ansermino and Dr. Guy Dumont CFRI, UBC and BC children.
The researchers say that this simple piece, but innovative technology is a big step towards better diagnosis for children with pneumonia and other respiratory diseases. Pneumonia is the leading cause of child deaths worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. With a quick and accurate diagnosis, children with pneumonia can often be saved with simple interventions, such as antibiotics.
RRate allows workers to measure respiratory rate by pressing the touch screen whenever the child inhales. In addition to calculating the rate of inhalation during a given time, the application also provides an animation of a baby breathing, allowing a direct comparison with the patient to breathe. A free version, non-study of the application is available online.
"We are leveraging the computing capabilities, touch screen and vibration feedback phone to measure respiratory rate and faster with more confidence," said Dr. Karlen.
researchers collected data from 30 subjects who used the app while watching videos of breathing children at different rates. Using these results, they developed an algorithm that allowed the application to produce accurate measurements in less time.
The next step in this research is to further improve the diagnosis of pneumonia in low-resource settings by combining this application with the phone oximeter. Developed by researchers CFRI and UBC, the phone oximeter provides non-invasive measurement of oxygen levels in the blood using a light sensor and a mobile phone.
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