Inconspicuous Daily Medical Analyses

Inconspicuous Daily Medical Analyses

David Borkholder, Principal Investigator

Cardiovascular disease impacts nearly 30% of those over age 65 and is the leading cause of death in the United States. The direct costs of medical care and indirect costs of cardiovascular disease approached $450 billion a year in 2010, and are projected to rise to over $1 trillion a year by 2030. Tracking daily changes in one’s cardiovascular health can be critical in diagnosing and managing cardiovascular disease, such as heart failure and hypertension. Dr. Borkholder’s lab at PHT180 has worked to integrate physiological sensors into a toilet seat to capture cardiovascular parameters in the clinic and the home, with automated data transmission to the cloud. Advanced signal processing algorithms and techniques enable robust extraction of heart rate, heart rate variability, QT interval, QRS duration, pulse wave velocity, blood oxygenation, and blood pressure automatically from the seat. The system is being used in clinical studies with heart failure patients and to detect cardiovascular dysfunction associated with cancer treatments.

For more information about this research please visit https://www.rit.edu/borkholderlab/research