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Developed by researchers at the University of Washington to replace spirometers—devices used by doctors to measure lung capacity and diagnose respiratory conditions—SpiroSmart is a simple app that costs thousands of pounds less than dedicated hardware. So it’s affordable and easy to use by patients who can monitor their conditions at home by simply exhaling on their phones.
A spirometer can measure how badly your asthma, etc., is affecting your airways by simply measuring etc the speed and volume of air as someone blows into a tube.
But SpiroSmart takes a different approach to avoid the need for extra hardware. The researchers modeled a human trachea and vocal tract and used that to generate an algorithm which can analyse the sound of someone’s breath as it resonates inside their lungs. The sound and resonance changes as the flow of air is restricted, and the app is able to detect this, providing a doctor with everything they’d need to know to make a diagnosis. Surprisingly, the app, which could be given away for free, is just as accurate as dedicated spirometers. And patients don’t have to push themselves to the point of exhaustion just to get an accurate reading. [Ubiquitous Computing Lab - University of Washington via Medgadget]
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I’m pretty sure I can tell if my breathing is fine or not. We’re not idiots, can tell if we feel ill and usually our breathing is the first thing. All this software will cause is misinformation because I doubt it’s accurate or even works.
There’s a huge difference between feeling fine & having a cold, and the long-term deterioration of someone’s respiratory health which needs to be monitored accurately for months or even years on end.
Living with asthma for the past quarter of a century, it’s not something you take lightly, especially when the same symptoms can manifest themselves for a variety of reasons – you might be out of breath because you’ve been for a run, or you might be out of breath because you’re coming down with bronchitis.
One is a little more serious than the other, and anything that makes it easier for a medical professional to draw the distinctions is only a good thing.
Also I’m pretty sure you’re trolling given that the penultimate sentence of the article states that not only does it work, but it’s just as accurate as the dedicated equipment…
Did you even read the article?
“Surprisingly, the app, which could be given away for free, is just as accurate as dedicated spirometers”
I thought this was a leftover April Fools article – but fair play, this app looks (or should that be sounds) amazing!