Wearable Sensor Can Track COVID-19 Symptoms, Relay Info To Doctors And Patients
CHICAGO (CBS) -- It looks like a puffy Band-Aid.
But the tiny high-tech device could detect symptoms of COVID-19... before you even realize you're infected.
CBS 2's Suzanne Le Mignot spoke to the Chicago doctor behind the small device, with big potential.
Doctor John A. Rogers is a faculty member in the biomedical engineering department at Northwestern University. He helped to develop a new device that can track COVID-19 symptoms.
"I'm wearing one of the devices myself," Rogers said. "It goes right where you need it, in terms of cough and respiratory activity."
Rogers led the team that created this adhesive silicone sensor, in partnership with Shirley Ryan AbilityLab. Rogers said the device allows researchers to gain deeper insight into specific symptoms related to COVID-19 like fever, respiratory activity and coughing.
"We can not only count coughs, when a cough happens, how many times you're coughing during the day, we can measure cough intensity, cough frequency. We can capture cough sounds. Is it a dry cough? Is it a wet cough," Rogers said.
Two weeks ago, a total of 25 COVID-19 patients and medical workers from Shirley Ryan AbilityLab started wearing the sensor for 12 hours each day. When it's taken off, it's put on a charger and the information is uploaded to a secure cloud.
"It allows hospitals to release patients and continue to track them," he added.
The next step for researchers is to have the device track oxygen levels in the blood. Low oxygen levels is something doctors have been seeing in COVID-19 patients.