Neeti Prasad

In May 2017, I completed a short internship at Kno.e.sis Center, Wright State University (WSU) to work to answer an important question: How can we use different sensors to track an asthmatic patient’s outdoor and indoor environment, symptoms, medications, and activity levels, to eventually correlate these conditions with the symptoms that the patient might experience. A group of students at WSU created the "khealth kit" that consisted of four sensors: 

 

1. –Foobot: Measures indoor and outdoor air conditions such as Pollen Levels, Air Quality Index (AQI), Particulate Matter (PM), and Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC).

2. –Spirometer: Measures Peak Expiratory Flow (PEF) and Forced Expiratory Volume (FEV1)

3. –Samsung Tablet: Tracks Symptoms and Medications of  a Patient

–F 4. Fitbit: Tracks Patient’s Physical Activity

 

 The asthmatic patient, who for the purpose of this report will be called New Patient (NP). took readings using all four sensors over a period of three weeks. The first week NP had a regular exercise routine and was taking 2 puffs of Flovent (asthma long-acting medication) in the morning and evening. In the second week, NP had a regular exercise routine and was off of all asthma and allergy related medication, and the last week NP had no exercise and no medication. I wanted to see how the variation of exercise and medication levels would affect the spirometer readings and the symptoms. 

 

On April 20th, 2017, NP had finished exercising and a few hours later, NP experienced chest tightness, a clear asthmatic symptom. On this day NP took Ventolin (rescue medicine for asthma). When I went back to observe the various data NP had collected that day I saw that the pollen levels, AQI,  PM, and VOC values were all much higher than the safe levels. Furthermore, NP's spirometer readings were lower than NP's average spirometer readings.

 

Overall, through this experiment, I was able to conclude that using sensors can help track triggers in the outdoor environment and can track symptoms, that can eventually help a doctor or clinician diagnose and medicate the patient.