AireSone Junior is a wearable respiratory monitor for children that has been developed by AEvice Health, a spinout of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. The device is attached to a child’s chest at night and listens to their breathing. An algorithm can process the audio signal, measuring the respiratory rate, heart rate, and sleep cycle, and the device notifies parents when warning signs in their child’s vitals are detected. The device is conceived for use with children who suffer from respiratory illnesses such as asthma, pneumonia, and sleep apnea.
The data are readable by parents on a smart device, and the device can provide alerts, such as when a child is suffering an asthmatic episode, allowing parents to intervene in time. The app also allows parents to generate reports that can be shared with clinicians or caregivers, to keep everyone up to date on how the child is doing. The company has aimed to produce a product that can give parents peace of mind during the night, knowing that their child’s vital signs are being monitored.
Medgadget had the opportunity to ask Adrian Ang, AEvice Health CEO, some questions about the product.
Conn Hastings, Medgadget: How did you become interested in this area?
Adrian Ang, AEvice Health: When I was young, I lived 10 years as an asthmatic child. There were a couple of times where I found myself waking up in the middle of the night struggling to breathe – it felt as though I was drowning. In fact, I tried to sleep it off on one occasion and found myself in an emergency room. After that episode, my parents, especially my mother, had to sacrifice her sleep to check on me regularly through the night. Having witnessed first hand the pain and anxiety that I put my mother through, I was motivated to create a device that could help give parents a better peace of mind.
Medgadget: What types of respiratory issues is the system designed to monitor?
Adrian Ang: AireSone Junior measures the respiratory rate, heart rate, and sleep quality of a child. It provides round-the-clock monitoring for children suffering from respiratory illness or conditions such as asthma. These parameters can also be helpful especially for the care of children with epilepsy or other disabilities.
Medgadget: So, how do the sensor and associated app work together? What types of data can parents and clinicians obtain?
Adrian Ang: Our sensor listens to a child’s chest like a stethoscope and sends the signals via Bluetooth to a wifi-connected docking station. This information is then synced to the cloud and analyzed by our proprietary algorithm, picking up warning signs from the vital information, and finally pushes a notification to the authorized mobile device(s) informing the parents of any concerning issues. Both parents and their clinicians can use AireSone Junior to access real-time and historical data such as respiratory rate, heart rate, and sleep quality. There is also a journal feature where parents can note down the interventions that they have taken (ie. medication intake) and access them later on.
Medgadget: How can the system assess if there is a respiratory issue?
Adrian Ang: AireSone Junior comes with pre-set parameters to notify parents when their child’s respiratory and heart rates move into an abnormal range. Over time, our technology also has the ability to learn and personalize the parameters based on each individual.
Medgadget: Is the sensor comfortable and easy to use? Does it stay firmly attached during the night?
Adrian Ang: The AireSone Junior device is worn by placing the adhesive sleeve on the skin of the chest. This is to ensure that our device can help parents to detect warning signs in the lungs within the shortest time possible. Our patch has also been engineered and tested carefully to provide optimal adhesion on a child’s chest, and yet retains a high level of comfort at the same time.
Medgadget: How has the product been received by users so far?
Adrian Ang: Our community of parents and clinicians are extremely excited by AireSone Junior. Parents have also reached out to us to share the challenges they faced, and we have published these on our website to create more awareness about the common diseases affecting children today.
We are trying our best to bring forward our production to help parents today.
Link: AEvice Health…
