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Wireless Cameras To Monitor Newborns’ Vital Signs

Source: Science Daily
GS II: Science and Technology- developments and their applications and effects in everyday life


Overview

Wireless Cameras To Monitor Newborns’ Vital Signs
Photo by Omar Lopez on Unsplash
  1. News in Brief
  2. About Camera System

Why in the News?

In the near future, premature babies kept warm in neonatal incubators could be medically monitored using cameras rather than with sensors attached to their skin.

News in Brief

  • A camera system was developed to improve the way babies’ heart rates and breathing are monitored.
  • The system is about to be tested on premature babies at University Hospital Zurich (USZ).
  • With the camera system, no physical contact is required.
About Camera System

About Developers

  • Swiss researchers have developed a wireless camera system to monitor vital signs in premature babies.
  • Contactless system created by researchers at the EPFL Polytechnical University in Lausanne and at the Swiss Centre for Electronics and Microtechnology, CSEM, in Neuchatel,
  • It could replace uncomfortable and highly inaccurate skin sensors.

Current Technique issues

  • Skin sensors are used for monitoring.
  • The skin sensors currently used to monitor vital signs in babies born prematurely generate false alarms in up to 90% of cases, mainly set off by the baby’s movement.

Advantage

  • It will avoid the discomfort made by the sensors
  • Also a significant stress factor for nurses and a poor use of their time – it distracts them from managing real emergencies and can affect the quality of care

How it works

  • The system should allow premature babies kept warm in neonatal incubators to be medically monitored using highly sensitive cameras.
  • These cameras detect the newborn’s pulse by detecting and analysing its skin colour, which changes ever so slightly every time its heart beats.
  • Breathing is monitored by measuring movements of the thorax and shoulders.
  • At night, infrared cameras take over, which means that monitoring can be carried out non-stop
  • The optical system was designed by CSEM researchers, who chose cameras sensitive enough to detect minute changes in skin colour.
  • The EPFL researchers designed algorithms to process the data in real-time.

The cameras developed are under testing which give similar output as the conventional sensors


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