Personal Warning Temperature (PWT)

Abstract

The Personal Warning Temperature (PWT) is a method of determining a person's personal warning temperature that defines a fever for that person. The method includes analyzing a person's body temperature measurements taken over time when the person is healthy, in order to find the person's average temperature; standard deviation; a channel defined by an upper and lower temperature bound using the average and standard deviation, and a selected multiplier for the standard deviation, such that nearly all body temperatures fall within the channel; and a personal warning temperature similarly defined using the average, standard deviation, and another selected multiplier for the standard deviation. The method also determines a correction or interpretation of a person's body temperature based on the time of day to account for known variations associated with circadian rhythm. A person can use their personal warning temperature for improved and accelerated awareness of their health status.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]NONEFEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH[0002]NONEBACKGROUND OF THE INVENTIONField of Invention[0003]The invention relates to the field of medical screening and health monitoring; and particularly to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases. The invention reduces or prevents the spread of infectious diseases by enabling the early detection of body temperature abnormalities based on personal warning temperatures that are otherwise not noticed by widely accepted minimum temperature thresholds for identification of fever.Description of the Related Art[0004]Fever is defined as having a body temperature above the normal range. When a person is healthy, body temperature naturally varies for a variety of factors such as sex, time of day, current metabolic activity, ambient temperature, and biological events. When a person is not healthy, body temperature may become elevated as fever is a common, natural response to infection. It is he...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0008]Although it is not necessary to display body temperatures in a time-based graph in any specific exemplary embodiment, doing so facilitates understanding. Therefore, body temperature is often part of an exemplary embodiment. Similarly, body temperature is not necessary in order to calculate or display a personal channel of expected normal body temperatures in order to calculate or know a person's personal warning temperature. Displaying the channel also facilitates understanding and is often displayed on a graph, along with the personal warning temperature of the individual.

[0009]Not only is a personal warning temperature more accurate at identifying fever, it also triggers earlier because it is generally lower than the traditional definition of 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit. By accurately defining a fever and identifying a fever earlier, people with the potential to infect others with disease can take appropriate action at an earlier date, in order to avoid or reduce the chances of infecting others.

[0010]Knowing your personal warning temperature, and specifically knowing when your body temperature measurement rises above your personal warning temperature, creates a new capability to provide early warning of possible illness, infectiousness, and ability to appropriately react in a timely manner, in order to help manage an epidemic, pandemic, or other health crisis with visibility that has never been known before. Your personal warning temperature is more accurate and usually lower than the traditional definition of a fever such as 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit. This results in the feasibility of early warning when contracting a disease.

[0011]When displaying a person's body temperature data on a graph, it easy to see that, when healthy, the person's body temperature is usually within a channel. It is also relatively easy to determine when the person's body temperature rises above their personal warning temperature. The graph, with the personal warning temperature displayed, removes the need to remember their personal warning temperature.

[0012]In the case of COVID-19 and perhaps other infectious diseases, people with mild symptoms of the disease are not currently being detected when they are infectious; and thus they do not take precautions to avoid infecting others. Temperature screening devices are not identifying these people either because the devices are often set to trigger at 100.4 degrees, which is the traditional definition of fever. PWT can more accurately and more quickly inform people when they are getting sick. If every person knew their personal warning temperature and monitored their body temperature daily, we would be in a much better position to manage the COVID-19 pandemic, and perhaps future pandemics.

Problems solved by technology

However, for COVID-19, defining a fever as 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit is hindering management of the pandemic.

The current state of the art is insufficient to control the spread of the coronavirus and other infectious diseases.

It is based on old, outdated data and people are grasping at non-medical, non-FDA approved, very expensive, and flashy technologies that do not reach the resolution for finding and identifying mild symptoms.

Images