Bioinformatic Based Wearable Critical Care Monitor

There is a well-understood need for a small bioinformatics based wearable critical care monitor allowing for the remote monitoring and triage of wounded warfighters. Our Phase I research demonstrated that by augmenting a commercial wearable body monitoring device (BodyMedia"s SenseWear Armband) with ECG and sophisticated signal processing including the wavelet transform invented at Virginia Commonwealth University, the hemorrhagic shock status of a wounded warfighter was accurately detectable in a simulated shock setting. Algorithms were also developed to predict useful critical parameters such as pulse pressure, shock index, stroke volume, and blood pressure from the armband signals. Subsequent research suggests that adding arm impedance to the existing set of sensors (ECG, heat flux, galvanic skin response, skin temperature, ambient temperature, and motion-based-parameters) further improves the accuracy of the system. Our Phase II proposal is to incorporate all of these sensors into a commercially ready wearable platform with additional memory and networking capabilities and to further improve and validate the prediction algorithms using existing collaborative efforts with the US Army Institute of Surgical Research (USAISR) as well as on critically ill and injured trauma and surgical patients at a busy urban Level I Trauma Center (VCU Medical Center).