Apparatus and associated methods relate to the determination of local environmental air quality by processing data from a local device sensing a user's respiration-vocalization. In an illustrative example, respiration-vocalization for a CPAP user may be sensed by an airflow and/or air pressure sensor. Respiratory disturbance events, such as coughing, for example, may be detected. The sensed events, converted to respiration-vocalization data, may be collected to estimate the environmental air quality and/or particle density around the user. Some examples may estimate specific allergen concentrations by correlating user respiration-vocalization data with the respiration-vocalization data from users/patients with known airborne particle sensitivities. In some embodiments, regional environmental air quality data may be compared with respiration-vocalization data to produce local environmental air quality results. Various results may advantageously indicate specific allergen conditions in an area based on monitoring of a population of users of CPAP machines or other devices in widespread use.

Described is a wearable device configured to oscillate a chest of a user. The wearable device may include a chest wall oscillator, a sound detector, and a controller for controlling operations of the chest wall oscillator, based on sound from the sound detector. The chest wall oscillator may be mounted on the chest of the user to oscillate the chest of the user. The sound detector may detect the sound from the chest of the user before, during, and/or after operation of the chest wall oscillator. The controller may change one or more of a frequency, intensity, or duration of the oscillations of the chest wall oscillator, depending on an analysis of the sound from the sound detector.

The present invention relates generally and specifically to computerized devices capable of diagnosis tailoring for an individual, and capable of controlling effectors to deliver therapy or enhance performance also tailored to an individual. The invention integrates sensors which sense signals from measurable body systems together with external machines, to form adaptive digital networks over time of general health and health of specific body functions. The invention has applications in sleep and wakefulness, sleep-disordered breathing, other breathing disturbances, memory and cognition, monitoring and response to obesity or heart failure, monitoring and response to other conditions, and general enhancement of performance.

A system for dispensing sterile covers for a stethoscope or other medical device, including a container including elongated members positioned in the container, terminating at tips proximate one end of the container; one or more collapsed pouches positioned inside the container, each pouch having open and closed ends and retainers, each retainer adapted to receive a corresponding elongated member, the collapsed pouches being supported on the elongated members; each pouch comprising a tab positioned proximate the open end for being grasped and pulled in a direction away and downwards from the elongated members, the open end forming an open position defined by the retainers and the tab for receiving a head of the stethoscope inside the pouch while the retainers remain engaged with the elongated members; after use, the pouch is removable from the stethoscope without a user contacting a patient contacting region of the cover.

A system includes a device for detecting the swallowing of a patient including at least one sensor for detecting swallowing configured to measure a swallowing signal, a processor for processing the swallowing signal connected to the device for detecting swallowing and configured to characterize the swallowing signal. The system includes an augmented reality or virtual reality headset configured to display virtual content to the patient, a virtual content processor connected to the processor for processing the swallowing signal and to the augmented reality or virtual reality headset, the virtual content processor being configured to deliver the virtual content to the augmented reality or virtual reality headset and to adapt the virtual content delivered according to the swallowing signal received from the processor for processing the swallowing signal.

A digestive canal scanning device of the present invention includes a sensor module, a data processing unit, and an analysis unit. A body scanning device of the present invention includes a sensor module, a data processing unit, and an analysis unit. An acoustic digestive organ monitoring system of the present invention includes an auscultation unit, an artifact collection unit, a signal extraction unit, a feature extraction unit, a database, an artificial neural network, and a wireless communication unit.

A medical monitoring system for identifying an end-exhalation carbon dioxide value of enhanced clinical utility is described herein. The medical monitoring system can include a capnometer for generating an output corresponding to a time-series of exhaled carbon dioxide values from a patient during an exhalation and a processor programmed to analyze the exhalation. In some examples, the processor can also be programmed to identify a peak carbon dioxide value at an end of the exhalation, determine if the peak carbon dioxide value may have been higher if the exhalation had been prolonged, and provide an output responsive to said determination.

Active auscultation may be used to determine organ (e.g., lung or heart) characteristics of users. An acoustic or piezo-electric signal (e.g., a pulse, a tone, and/or a broadband pulse) may be projected into an animal (typically human) body or thorax. The signal interacts with the body, or lungs, and in some cases may induce resonance within the body/lungs. A resultant signal may be emitted from the body which may be analyzed to determine, for example, a lung's resonant frequency or frequencies and/or how the sound is otherwise absorbed, reflected, or modified by the body. This information may be indicative of lung characteristics such as lung capacity, a volume of air trapped in the lungs, and/or the presence of COPD.

Active auscultation may be used to determine organ (e.g., lung or heart) characteristics of users. An acoustic or piezo-electric signal (e.g., a pulse, a tone, and/or a broadband pulse) may be projected into an animal (typically human) body or thorax. The signal interacts with the body, or lungs, and in some cases may induce resonance within the body/lungs. A resultant signal may be emitted from the body which may be analyzed to determine, for example, a lung's resonant frequency or frequencies and/or how the sound is otherwise absorbed, reflected, or modified by the body. This information may be indicative of lung characteristics such as lung capacity, a volume of air trapped in the lungs, and/or the presence of COPD.

A method for stratifying severity of asthma of a patient initially comprises receiving acoustic data corresponding to sounds of the patient from an acoustic sensor and identifying, by a processor, at least one cough sound in the acoustic data. With or without the patient being present, the method further involves determining, by operation of the processor, one or more overall cough sound feature values of the at least one cough sound for each of one or more characteristic features. The overall cough sound feature values are then applied to a classifier that is implemented by the processor and which has been pre-trained with a training set of characteristic feature values from a population of asthmatic and non-asthmatic subjects. The method then involves monitoring an output from the pre-trained classifier to deem the patient cough sound as indicating one of a number of degrees of severity of asthma.