According to new research, voice changes measured with a mobile phone can signal a potentially deadly asthma flare-up three days in advance. The high-tech app can also give a vital early warning of a flare-up in symptoms of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), say scientists.
How it Works
A flare-up of asthma or COPD, known as an exacerbation, is when symptoms such as difficulty breathing, coughing and phlegm become suddenly worse. They can interfere with a patient’s everyday activities and, without prompt medical care, they can become dangerous.
Study leader Dr. Sami Simons said that capturing voice via a mobile phone is the next logical step to detect deteriorations in asthma or COPD at home and on time. The study included 38 people with COPD and 35 people with asthma, who were being treated in the Netherlands.
Over the course of 12 weeks, participants were asked to use a specially designed app to record and analyze their voice daily. Each person would record themselves speaking a long ‘a’ sound, then either reading out a short piece of text or answering a question.
The TACTICAS app (Telemonitoring for Asthma and COPD Through voICe AnalysiS) was co-designed with patients and a startup called Zana Technologies. It is currently only available for research purposes, but Dr. Simons and his team have created a website to explain how the voice technology works and how people can contribute to the research by donating their voice.
Original reporting: KTBS 3 (Shreveport) — read the source article.
