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StethoCloud Project Diagnoses Pneumonia On the Cheap
Hugh Pickens writes "According to the World Health Organization, nearly one in five childhood deaths worldwide is caused by pneumonia, each year killing an estimated 1.4 million children under the age of 5, more than any other disease. Even in developed countries, trained healthcare professionals have trouble accurately diagnosing pneumonia because diagnosis comes after the onset of symptoms, which often must become severe before the condition is recognized as life threatening. Now Singularity Hub reports on StethoCloud, a cloud-based service that turns a Windows smartphone into a digital stethoscope. Using a specially designed microphone called a 'stethomic' that plugs into the smartphone's audio jack, and an app that guides users through the proper method for listening to a patient's breathing, early testing shows promise at accurately detecting the disease. Currently, the group is working with the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne to develop research protocols for field testing and they've sent the stethomics to hospitals in Ghana, Malaysia, and Mozambique. By next year, the team hopes the device will be in use in areas that need it most. The team expects its stethoscope to cost around $15 to $20, significantly cheaper than current digital stethoscopes in the market which tend to cost hundreds of dollars. The team argues that the cost of the phone itself is negligible, as smartphones are quickly becoming common even in the developing countries where childhood pneumonia is most prevalent."
The project looks extremely interesting and useful, but I don't get why they wish to base it on "the cloud". Does their algorithm really require a centralized server to compute a result? Seems to me that would prohibit the application's use in areas where an internet link is not available.
... whatever
All these stories about how cheap it is to save a life are lies.
It always only considers the short term costs and never considers the long term costs of adding to an already huge amount of overpopulation.
I'm not saying that these children should not be helped. I am just saying that we should stop the hypocrisy and face the facts. All of them
Why develop it for a phone that nobody uses (or wants)?
The government which is strong enough to protect you from everything is strong enough to take everything from you.
one of my kids had pnemonia and one of the best pediatricians in NYC couldn't diagnose it for a few days because the exact symptoms didn't appear for a few days after the fever first started. at first he thought it was a virus
Except you need a Windows phone, and they're not free.
So this is for the family who DON'T have the money to buy a simple stethoscope, but DO have the money to buy a Windows smart phone?
Also it seems to be a cloud app? So not only do you have to pay for the phone, you have to pay for the data plan to go with it???
Seriously? Why wouldn't you buy a manual stethoscope and a tape or cd to learn to use it. Then use all the money you save to buy decent food and clothing and medicine for your kid so they don't get pneumonia in the first place!
Most computer experts now agree that Linux is, without exception, less secure and less reliable than commercial alternatives such as Mac OS X Server. However, many IT departments insist on using the "free" software, which they rationalize to management by pointing out the initial cost difference, because they have a perverse incentive to do so. A reliable operating system would mean less maintenance work and therefore cuts to IT budgets.
It's well known that Mac OS doesn't get viruses, but many Fortune 500 companies are still using the hackers' choice for operating systems (based on its open, easy to penetrate nature) because of this IT department scam.
How many more critical life support systems have to go offline?
They make it seem like this is some revolutionary new way to identify pneumonia and is better than anything we currentally have. But it just turns a cheap microphone into a crappy stethoscope.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Good Stuff!
Smartphones moving towards a Tricoder?
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
The app does little more than guide the user where and how to take samples. The rest is done "in the cloud". It should be trivial to port it.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Even more low tech are the HeroRATS, originally trained to sniff out landmines in Mozambique, now being trained to detect the presence of TB in sputim samples. Sometimes a low tech solution works when a high tech solution falls short. However, since pneumonia is fluid on the lungs and not always caused by a single bacteria, maybe the high tech solution of a stethoscope is better in this case.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Can be augmented by parallel advances in food & fresh water distribution so we're not keeping more citizens of developing nations alive to starve later.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
What about hippa that data better be encrypted
i know this is wildly unpopular but if we were to save everyone born from dying of disease, it's going to send the global population through the roof. we've already cheated nature's population control methods plenty and now the human population unsustainable without so very many people suffering. we arent exactly doing the planet a favor by saving everyone that may die.
i get it, it sucks but this is the truth of the matter. if someone has a solution, i would love to hear it.
captcha: vampire
yeah, vampires could help.
which cost the same price as a digital stethoscope? maybe a couple of smartphones to the digital stethoscope or something... so pneumonia should already be easily diagnosed? in the 1st world as well since doctors should have easy enough access to the existing technology? this is badass but is it really that hard right now to detect it?
The team expects the stethoscope to cost..... WHAT...
http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/06/stehoclou/
Nevermind the cost of the phone is many times more.
For the same price a classic stethoscope could be had.
Better to have developed a HTML5 trainer
That can run on any phone, laptop, desktop....
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
This is silly if the death is so common place education seems more reasonable. I rather not see the world were only some place s could be trusted to know what top killers test results are some where else. Is their something that these people can do? If not then does not seem to matter how correctly someone in the first world can tell them yes or no. Sadly the greatness of the 16th of Europe birth can be seen in the depopulation of the black dealth.
Impressive to read that folks are developing a digital listening device for the chest of children to aid in the diagnosis of pneumonia. But what isn't shared here is that listening (or "auscultation") is quite inaccurate for the diagnosis of pneumonia when done by expert humans called doctors. Maybe a machine could do better, I don't know. But just aspiring to be as good as a human doctor's ears is not good enough. --JSt
This is only one of many similar add-ons to a smart phone, where a small investment in extra hardware turns a smart phone into some piece of lab or medical equipment. I can recall seeing articles about dermascopes and microscopes as just two examples.
So with just one smart phone and maybe $150 a rural doctor could have a small portable laboratory. It is curious that they've chosen a Windows phone to work on. You'd think Android phones would be much more common in isolated areas.
Here's one for the self diagnosis of sexually transmitted infections by analyzing a urine sample:
http://www.gizmag.com/self-diagnosis-sti-system-via-mobile-phone-being-developed/16873/
Microsoft sets the mood for the Consumer Electronics Show 2011 starting tomorrow with a pre-CES keynote this evening. In this first part, we've put together a few of the more important updates for Kinect users and the Windows Phone 7 ecosystem - http://is.gd/eqN4vu
$20 for the stethoscope mic. $600 for the smartphone. How is that cheap? it's only cheap when you add more apps & plugin devices to the phone.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
Pneumonia can't be diagnosed relying only in auscultation. You need an compatible history and compatible lung x-ray signs. A good stethoscope, at least like littman classic II will perform better and cheaper than a smartphone and you don't need to recharge or pay a monthly bill. A doctor with proper training and physical examination skills is still necessary.
The problem in these countries should be lack of infrastructure, a working x-ray machine and films or insufficient access to health services namely unavailability of free care and medications and lnsufficient doctors where people need.