System and method to measure, analyze, and model pulmonary function and disease utilizing temporal, spatial, and contextual data

• US 10,201,307 B2
• Filed: 09/24/2014
• Issued: 02/12/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 09/24/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Hampton, Mark C., Lynar, Timothy M., Pandey, Suraj, Wagner, John M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Jang, Christian
• Assistant Examiner(s): TOTH, KAREN E
• Application Number:
  US14/495,348
• Publication Number:
  US 20160081611A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,602 Days
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2560/0247 for compensation or correction of the measured physiological value
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0022 Monitoring a patient using a global network, e.g. telephone networks, internet
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/087 Measuring breath flow
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/1112 Global tracking of patients, e.g. by using GPS
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/4803 Speech analysis specially adapted for diagnostic purposes
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/6898 Portable consumer electronic devices, e.g. music players, telephones, tablet computers
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7246 using correlation, e.g. template matching or determination of similarity
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 25/66 for extracting parameters related to health condition detecting or measuring for diagnostic purposes A61B5/00
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/67 for remote operation
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/70 for mining of medical data, e.g. analysing previous cases of other patients
• CPC Class Codes: G16Z 99/00 Subject matter not provided for in other main groups of this subclass
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/80 Services using short range communication, e.g. near-field communication [NFC], radio-frequency identification [RFID] or low energy communication

Abstract

An information processing system, computer readable storage medium, and methods for analyzing the airflow related health of a person. A method includes obtaining an audio sample of a person'"'"'s verbal communication, obtaining geographic information of the person, querying a remote server based on the geographic information, and obtaining additional information from the remote server, the additional information being related to the geographic information, and extracting contours of amplitude change from the at least one audio sample over a period of time, the contours of amplitude change corresponding to changes in an airflow profile of the person. The method further includes correlating the contours of amplitude change with periodic episodes typical of airflow related health problems, and determining, based at least on the additional information, whether the contours of amplitude change result from at least one local environmental factor related to the geographic information.

Claims

1. A method for analyzing airflow related health of a person, the method comprising:

capturing, with a microphone circuit of a wireless device, audio signals from an ambient environment in a vicinity of the microphone circuit;

converting, with a processor of the wireless device being operatively coupled to audio conditioning and processing circuitry coupled to the microphone circuit, the captured audio signals to digitized audio signals representative of at least one audio sample of a person'"'"'s verbal communication with another person while the person is using the wireless device at a geographic location;

obtaining, with the processor operatively coupled with a GPS receiver, geographic information of the person while the person is at the geographic location, the geographic information being associated with the at least one audio sample of the person'"'"'s verbal communication;

querying, by the processor operatively coupled to a network interface device in the wireless device and communicating with a wireless communication network, at least one additional source of information based on the geographic information, the at least one source of information being communicatively coupled with the wireless communication network, and as a result of the querying obtaining additional information from the at least one additional source of information, the additional information being related to the geographic information;

extracting, by the processor analyzing the at least one audio sample for determining fluctuations in sound amplitude, contours of amplitude change from the at least one audio sample over a period of time, the contours of amplitude change corresponding to changes in an airflow profile of the person while the person is at the geographic location;

correlating, with the processor, the contours of amplitude change with periodic episodes typical of airflow related health problems;

determining, based at least on the additional information, whether the contours of amplitude change result from at least one local environmental factor related to the geographic information, and wherein the additional information comprises crowd sourced information received by the wireless device performing short-range wireless communications and thereby exchanging anonymous data with peer wireless devices when those peer wireless devices are in a vicinity with the wireless device, the received crowd sourced information comprising identification of at least one geographic location where an airflow disease trigger has been detected that detrimentally has affected airflow related health of another person at the at least one geographic location; and

continuously providing to the user of the wireless device performance reports related to the user'"'"'s airflow health while using the wireless device, the performance reports being based on at least;

the contours of amplitude change being correlated with periodic episodes typical of airflow related health problems, and

the crowd sourced information.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

producing a report, based at least on the correlating and on the determining, of the airflow related health of the person; and

presenting the report to a person.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the presenting comprises at least one of:

presenting the report at a regular interval, based on the correlating and determining indicating a non-urgent condition of airflow related health problems;

presenting, based on the correlating and determining, the report to the person contemporaneously with the correlating and determining indicating a likelihood of imminent severe airflow related health hazard;

presenting, based on the correlating and determining, the report to another person other than the person whose airflow related health is being analyzed, contemporaneously with the correlating and determining indicating a likelihood of imminent severe airflow related health hazard; and

presenting, based on the correlating and determining, the report to another person in a vicinity of the person whose airflow related health is being analyzed, contemporaneously with the correlating and determining indicating a likelihood of imminent severe airflow related health hazard.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the presenting comprises displaying the report on at least one of:

a display of a mobile phone;

a display of an information processing system;

a display of a laptop personal computer; and

a display of a tablet computer.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the obtaining at least one audio sample of the person'"'"'s verbal communication comprises:

capturing the person'"'"'s at least one of voiced and non-voiced audio during a conversation using a mobile telephone.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the obtaining the geographic information of the person comprises capturing a geographic location of the person at substantially a time of obtaining the at least one audio sample of the person'"'"'s verbal communication;

and wherein the determining is at substantially the time of obtaining the at least one audio sample.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the obtaining the geographic information of the person comprises capturing at least one geographic location of the person along a path being traveled by the person up to substantially a time of obtaining the at least one audio sample of the person'"'"'s verbal communication.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the obtaining the geographic information of the person comprises capturing a plurality of geographic locations of the person along a path being traveled by the person up to substantially a time of obtaining the at least one audio sample of the person'"'"'s verbal communication.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the querying the at least one additional source of information based on the geographic information comprises:

wirelessly sending a request message to a remote server, the request message including at least one of;

a representation of the geographic location information of the person; and

temporal information representing substantially a time of obtaining the at least one audio sample of the person'"'"'s verbal communication; and

wherein the obtaining additional information comprises;

receiving a response message from the remote server, the response message including the additional information.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the additional information comprises:

crowd sourced information received by the wireless device from a remote server, the crowd sourced information comprising identification of at least one geographic location related to the at least one of the geographic location information and the temporal information, where a trigger has been detected that detrimentally has affected airflow related health of another person at the at least one location as well as how their condition is trending and/or any experiences of acute airflow disease events.