Detecting an Overdose
Orange County, CA - January 18th, 2019 - According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIH), more than 130 people in the United States die every day, after overdosing on opioids. The addiction and misuse of opioids such as prescription pain relievers, heroin, and fentanyl, are a severe national crisis that affects public health as well as social and economic welfare.
Individuals who are overdosing on opioids can experience a diminished level of consciousness, depressed or slowed Breathing, which results in lack of oxygen to the brain. If the individual is alone while using the drug, they don’t have a way of asking for help in the event of an Overdose.
Researchers at the University of Washington have developed a cellphone app that uses sonar to monitor someone’s breathing rate, and detect when an Opioid Overdose has occurred. The app is called Second Chance. So far, the technology has accurately predicted overdoses ninety percent of the time; if it detects an overdose, it can automatically connect the user to emergency services. Emergency services could then administer the drug called naloxone (Narcan), which can stop the symptoms of overdose and save someone’s life if administered in time.
“The idea is that people can use the app during opioid use so that if they overdose, the phone can potentially connect them to a friend or emergency services to provide naloxone,” said Shyam Gollakota, a researcher involved in the study. “Here we show that we have created an algorithm for a smartphone that is capable of detecting overdoses by monitoring how someone’s breathing changes before and after opioid use.”
The app sends soundwaves from the phone to the to person’s chest and then monitors the way the sound waves return to the phone to look for specific breathing patterns. “We’re looking for two main precursors to opioid overdose: when a person stops breathing, or when a person’s breathing rate is seven breaths per minute or lower. Less than eight breaths per minute is a common cutoff point in a hospital that would trigger people to go to the bedside and make sure a patient is OK,” said co-corresponding author Dr. Jacob Sunshine, an assistant professor of anesthesiology and pain medicine at the UW School of Medicine.
As well as monitoring breathing, Second Chance also monitors how people move. “People aren’t always perfectly still while they’re injecting drugs, so we want to be still able to track their breathing as they’re moving around,” said lead author Rajalakshmi Nandakumar, a doctoral student in the Allen School. “We can also look for characteristic motions during an opioid overdose, like if someone’s head slumps or nods off.”
The developers of Second Chance are applying for approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to market the software as a potentially lifesaving monitor for people who use opioids.
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Ampronix is a renowned authorized master distributor of the medical industry's top brands as well as a world-class manufacturer of innovative technology. Since 1982, Ampronix has been dedicated to meeting the growing needs of the medical community with its extensive product knowledge, outstanding service, and state-of-the-art repair facility. Ampronix prides itself on its ability to offer tailored, one-stop solutions at a faster and more cost-effective rate than other manufacturers. Ampronix is ISO 13485:2016, and ANSI/ESD S20.20-2014 certified.
