Life sign detection and health state assessment system

Abstract

A wearable platform embodied in a belt or patch provides physiological monitoring of soldiers during field operations or trauma victims at accident sites and makes health state assessments. The platform includes sensors for heart rate, body motion, respiration rate and intensity, and temperature and further contains a microprocessor and short range transmitter. An analog circuit running an algorithm obtains the R-wave period from the EKG signal and produces electrical pulses with the period between pulses corresponding to the R-wave period. A rule based processing engine having an evaluation algorithm is capable of making a medical evaluation of subject condition and determines a confidence level for the evaluation. The rules are subject to variation depending upon the subject population. The information is communicated wirelessly to a local hub for relay to a remote monitor.

Description

[0001]This patent claims the benefit of the priority of Provisional Patent Application 60 / 517,149, filed Nov. 4, 2003 and entitled “Life Sign Detection and Health State Assessment System”, the full disclosure of which is incorporated by reference.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0002]This invention relates to compact wearable systems for measuring a subject's vital signs, such as heart rate, respiration rate, temperature, position and motion, possibly processing those measurements and transmitting the results of the processing wirelessly for remote monitoring. It also relates to processing algorithms for generating electrical signals indicating vital signs, and more generally for developing diagnostic information from groups of sensor readings.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0003]Electronic devices for monitoring a patient's vital signs at bedside are in common use in hospitals. Typically these measure, display and transmit to nursing stations EKG traces, blood pressure values, body temperature v...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0044]A system makes health state assessments based on data from a wearable platform embodied in a belt or patch that provides physiological monitoring of soldiers during field operations or trauma victims at accident sites. The system is the first capable of making a determination of the health state of the wearer with sufficient confidence to base triage decisions on that determination as opposed to merely reporting vital sign data. The system, in addition to sensors of vital signs and telemetry, has a rule processing engine, comprising a microprocessor running a health state assessment algorithm. It makes a health state assessment based on the remarkable determination that for an individual who is monitored in real time for at least one significant vital sign (e.g., heart rate, ECG waveforms, SpO2, respiration rate) and possibly one or more indirect life signs (such as body movement or response to direct command), it is possible to determine, with reasonable accuracy, whether the person is alive or dead. With an appropriately rich set of direct and indirect life signs, it is possible to further estimate the likelihood of injury or even the nature of an injury for such applications as remote triage.

[0050]An additional component, called the Local Hub, is also worn by the subject. In its simplest form the local hub contains a short range RF transceiver, a medium or long range RF transmitter or transceiver, and a microprocessor. The local hub receives the transmitted data from the LSDS wearable package and retransmits the signals to a remote station or base station. Retransmission is not necessarily synchronous with reception; the microprocessor may perform additional processing on the received data, may store the received data for later transmission, may add information to the data, and may reconfigure the data for more efficient transmission or other reasons (e.g. increased security or privacy).

Problems solved by technology

Thus medics and other rescue personnel continue to be killed or seriously injured attempting to rescue soldiers where rescue was already hopeless.

Despite the great need for systems to avoid such unnecessary casualties there has heretofore been no satisfactory system economical enough to simultaneously monitor large numbers of armed forces.

Again, there is not available at reasonable cost health assessment systems that could be applied to multiple subjects to allow triaging to take place rapidly by persons remote from the scene of injury.

Nevertheless, despite these suggestions and the great need, the prior art has not advanced to the point where such systems have been built and made practical.

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