User Interfaces for Mobile and Wearable Medical Devices

• US 20150317810A1
• Filed: 07/16/2015
• Published: 11/05/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 07/23/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: BARD Access Systems Incorporated (Becton, Dickinson & Co)
• Original Assignee: Romedex International SRL
• Inventors: Grunwald, Sorin, Hurezan, Isabella Barbara
• Granted Patent: US 10,905,348 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2090/502 Headgear, e.g. helmet, spectacles
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2560/0487 Special user inputs or interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 34/25 User interfaces for surgical systems
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/349 Detecting specific parameters of the electrocardiograph cycle
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/352 Detecting R peaks, e.g. for synchronising diagnostic apparatus; Estimating R-R interval
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/742 using visual displays A61B5/339 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/0381 Multimodal input, i.e. interface arrangements enabling the user to issue commands by simultaneous use of input devices of different nature, e.g. voice plus gesture on digitizer
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/011 Arrangements for interaction with the human body, e.g. for user immersion in virtual reality blind teaching G09B21/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/015 Input arrangements based on nervous system activity detection, e.g. brain waves [EEG] detection, electromyograms [EMG] detection, electrodermal response detection
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/206 Drawing of charts or graphs
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/63 for local operation

Abstract

Graphical layouts, algorithms, and methods are introduced herein to implement user interfaces for mobile and/or wearable medical devices. In one aspect of the present invention, new graphical layouts are introduced for simplified presentation of time-dependent patient data. In another aspect of the invention, methods and algorithms are introduced to acquire, extract and present relevant features of patient data in real-time in order to simplify the graphical presentation and interpretation. In another aspect of the invention, elements of a multi-modal user interface are introduced in order to simplify and minimize the user'"'"'s interaction with the medical wearable device. In yet another aspect of the invention, further methods are introduced for real-time interaction between a user or several users and a wearable or several wearable medical devices. In one embodiment of the present invention, a smartphone, a smart watch, a head-mounted device or similar devices can be used to acquire and display in real-time patient data, e.g., electrocardiogram and relevant features, e.g., heart rate, etc. In another embodiment of the present invention, smartphones, smart watches, head-mounted devices or similar devices can be used to share in real-time the patient data.

Claims

1. A method for simplifying the display of signals by using their relevant features, the method comprising:

extracting the relevant features of a signal, and

displaying the relevant features instead of the signal itself.

2. The display method as defined in claim 1, wherein simple user interaction using a touchscreen is supported in order to control the display of the relevant features.

3. The display method as defined in claim 1, wherein displaying the relevant features is auto-adaptive as a function of the information content of the signal.

4. The display method as defined in claim 1, wherein extracting the relevant features includes morphological analysis of signal characteristics in time and/or frequency domains.

5. The display method as defined in claim 1, wherein extracting the relevant features includes statistical analysis of signal characteristics in time and/or frequency domains.

6. The display method as defined in claim 1, wherein extracting the relevant features includes the reduction and or selection of the number of features characterizing the signal, i.e., selective data compression.

7. The display method as defined in claim 1, wherein extracting the relevant features includes the definition and computation of relevant features based on relevance analysis.

8. The display method as defined in claim 7, wherein the definition and computation of relevant features includes the definition and computation of sum and differences of the amplitudes of relevant signal waveforms.

9. The display method as defined in claim 7, wherein the computation of relevant features includes the computation of the standard deviation and of the correlation coefficient.

10. A user interface for simplified display of signals and/or of relevant features of signals comprising:

One or more synchronized signal displays, and

graphical elements for intuitive representation of relevant features,

and graphical elements for allowing the communication between more displays if more displays are present.

11. The user interface as defined in claim 10, wherein the relevant features are displayed without a time coordinate.

12. The user interface as defined in claim 10, wherein the history of changes over time of the relevant features are displayed using intuitive graphical elements, the user interface further comprising:

a straight line with symbols indicating significant locations on the line,

a graphical symbol representing the value of a relevant feature at a certain point in time, and

displaying the symbol representing the relevant feature on the straight line in real time.

13. The user interface as defined in claim 12, wherein the displayed graphical symbol represents the trend of the changes in the values of the relevant features.

14. The user interface as defined in claim 12, wherein the user interface further comprises:

interpreting the significance of the value relative to its relative position with respect to the symbols indicating significant locations on the straight line.

15. The user interface as defined in claim 12, wherein the user interface further comprises:

a touchscreen,

touch functions to optimize the display of the relevant feature including display scale and display speed, and

touch functions to control the display settings and functions.

16. The user interface as defined in claim 10, wherein the signals and/or the relevant features are displayed simultaneously on more displays remotely.

17. The user interface as defined in claim 16, wherein the user interface further comprises touch buttons and functions to allow for the transmission and reception of signals and/or of relevant features towards and from another remote display.

18. The user interface as defined in claim 17, wherein the signals and/or relevant features are transmitted between two or more smartphones by making and answering phone calls.

20. The user interface as defined in claim 12, wherein the relevant feature displayed is the sum calculated according to the method defined in claim 19 and wherein the symbols indicating significant locations on the display straight line include one or more of the following:

markers to indicate that the value of the relevant feature is in or out of range,

a marker to indicate that the value of the relevant feature is zero or close to zero,

a symbol to indicate the trend of the changes in the value of the relevant feature.

21. The user interface as defined in claim 20, wherein the significant location symbols including their shape and their colors are intuitive for the interpretation of the tip location of the intravascular catheter and can include:

a symbol, in green, to indicate that the intravascular catheter advances towards the cavo-atrial junction

a symbol, in red, to indicate that the catheter tip is moving away from the cavo-atrial junction

a symbol, in blue, to indicate that the tip of the intravascular catheter is close to or at the location of

a control electrode

a symbol, in green, to indicate that the catheter tip is moving towards the control electrode

a symbol, in red, to indicate that the catheter tip is moving away from the control electrode but not towards the cavo-atrial junction,

symbols, in yellow, to indicate that the calculated value of the relevant feature is out of the display range,

symbols, in yellow, to indicate that the calculated value of the relevant feature is not stable enough for display and/or interpretation.

19. A method for displaying the location of the tip of an intravascular catheter, the method comprising:

extracting the signed values of the peak values of the R-wave, the positive P-wave, and the negative P-wave of an intravascular ECG signal,

computing the relevant feature as the sum of the extracted peak values,

displaying the relevant feature value on a scale in real time.