How does it work?
The patient will continuously wear a device on the forearm that combines optical and ultrasound sensors. Measurements from the sensors will be merged to obtain reliable blood pressure and pulse wave propagation values, which can then be transmitted to the doctor via a wireless link.
Advantages?
Today, doctors generally examine patients suffering from hypertension once a month. With this patent-protected device, health professionals hope to continuously and remotely monitor blood pressure in order to detect anomalies and be alerted in case of an emergency.
The primary advantage of this solution is its reliability: the target is to ensure medical-grade performance results. CEA-Leti intends to achieve this by combining two types of sensors (optical and ultrasonic) synchronized at an acquisition frequency of 1 KHz, 15 to 20 times higher than connected watches. In addition, the solution will add physical and physiological information to the measured signals. This solution will also take into account parameters that vary from one individual to another, such as arterial stiffness.
Our research areas:
- Physiological and physical modeling
- System architecture for sensor performance
- Design and development of bi-modal autonomous wearable systems (optical and ultrasound)
- Data processing
- Deployment in clinical trials
Applications?
- Hypertension monitoring
- Monitoring patients under anesthesia or in intensive care
- Monitoring physiological parameters in extreme environments (e.g. firefighters' “heatstroke”)
“With precise blood pressure
measurements, we hope to
facilitate the monitoring
of hypertension and
its associated illnesses:
heart attacks, strokes
and irreversible kidney
damage. Currently, 80%
of patients worldwide are
not properly treated.” Pierre Blandin, head of CEA-Leti's Medical Devices strategic program