Human Hydration Status Monitor

To address the Army’s need for a non-invasive, rapid, field-deployable and inexpensive hydration status monitoring technology, ChromoLogic proposes to develop a new Ocular Hydration Monitor (OCHYMO). OCHYMO is based on measuring the plasma omolality by non-invasively measuring the osmolality of the aqueous humor. The unique optical and medical expertise of ChromoLogic scientists and collaborators will result in an innovative, non-invasive approach to measure the osmolality of the aqueous humor in a miniature, compact package. The robust measurement modality of OCHYMO will result in accuracies consistent with the gold standard in measuring hydration status, namely, invasive plasma osmolality measurements. Furthermore, OCHYMO measurement will be independent of physical posture, skin temperature/moisture. In Phase I ChromoLogic will demonstrate the feasibility of the OCHYMO technology by building a hand-held prototype ideally intended for pre-mission hydration measurements by troop leaders and medics. In Phase II, ChromoLogic plans to develop multiple OCHYMO prototypes, including a miniature ambulatory unit for non-invasive, continuous hydrations status monitoring.