SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PERFORMING A DIAGNOSTIC ANALYSIS OF PHYSIOLOGICAL INFORMATION

• US 20160306939A1
• Filed: 06/28/2016
• Published: 10/20/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 11/14/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Schroeter, Horst Juergen, Chang, E-Lee, Roberts, Linda, Khandelwal, Madhur, Clayton, Darnell
• Granted Patent: US 10,278,627 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0022 Monitoring a patient using a global network, e.g. telephone networks, internet
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/01 Measuring temperature of body parts ; Diagnostic temperature sensing, e.g. for malignant or inflamed tissue clinical contact thermometers G01K13/20
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/021 Measuring pressure in heart or blood vessels A61B5/0205 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/024 Detecting, measuring or recording pulse rate or heart rate A61B5/0205, A61B5/021 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/02416 using photoplethysmograph signals, e.g. generated by infrared radiation A61B5/14552 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/14532 for measuring glucose, e.g. by tissue impedance measurement
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/14551 for measuring blood gases
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/4842 Monitoring progression or stage of a disease
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/4872 Body fat
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7246 using correlation, e.g. template matching or determination of similarity
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/744 Displaying an avatar, e.g. an animated cartoon character
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7465 Arrangements for interactive communication between patient and care services, e.g. by using a telephone network telemetry of measured physiological signal A61B5/0002
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 3/006 based on simulated virtual individual or collective life forms, e.g. social simulations or particle swarm optimisation [PSO]
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/20 for electronic clinical trials or questionnaires
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/60 for patient-specific data, e.g. for electronic patient records
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/63 for local operation
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/67 for remote operation
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/20 for computer-aided diagnosis, e.g. based on medical expert systems

Abstract

A system that incorporates teachings of the present disclosure may include, for example, an avatar engine having a controller to retrieve a user profile of a user, present the user an avatar having characteristics that correlate to the user profile, detect one or more responses of the user during a communication exchange between the user and the avatar, identify from the one or more responses a need to determine a medical status of the user, establish communications with a medical diagnostic system, receive physiological information associated with the user, submit the physiological information to the medical diagnostic system, receive from the medical diagnostic system a diagnostic analysis of the physiological information, and present the diagnostic analysis to at least one of the user and a medical agent of the user, wherein the user is presented the diagnostic analysis by way of the avatar. Other embodiments are disclosed.

Claims

1. An avatar engine, comprising:

a processing system including a processor; and

a memory that stores executable instructions that, when executed by the processing system, facilitate performance of operations, comprising;

generating an avatar through equipment of a user, wherein the avatar interacts with the user through the equipment of the user;

analyzing an interaction between the avatar and the user to determine a desire to determine a medical status of the user;

requesting, by way of the avatar, that the user perform physiological tests to generate current physiological information from the physiological tests responsive to the desire to determine the medical status of the user;

receiving, by way of a measurement device associated with the equipment of the user, the current physiological information;

accessing prior physiological information;

comparing the prior physiological information with the current physiological information as a comparison;

determining a health condition of the user that indicates an improvement or deterioration in health based on the comparison;

presenting the health condition to equipment of a medical agent of the user, wherein the medical agent is presented the health condition by way of the avatar;

receiving from the equipment of the medical agent a prognosis and prescription determined from the comparison as determined by the medical agent; and

presenting the user with the health condition, the prognosis and the prescription by way of the avatar.

2. The avatar engine of claim 1, wherein the physiological information comprises one of a body temperature measurement of the user, a blood pressure measurement of the user, a heart rate measurement of the user, a height measurement of the user, a weight measurement of the user, or a body fat measurement of the user.

3. The avatar engine of claim 1, wherein the physiological information is obtained by one of a plurality of selected physiological measuring devices, and

wherein the operations further comprise receiving the physiological information via wireless communication with the one of the plurality of physiological measuring devices.

4. The avatar engine of claim 1, wherein the medical agent corresponds to one of a physician or a nurse, and

wherein the avatar is generated prior to receiving the physiological information, and wherein the avatar engine comprises a set top box providing interactive television services.

5. The avatar engine of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise presenting to the user by way of the avatar the improvement or deterioration in the health condition of the user.

6. The avatar engine of claim 5, wherein the avatar engine operates in a computing device communicatively coupled to an interactive media communication system comprising an internet protocol television communication system and an internet protocol multimedia subsystem communication system.

7. The avatar engine of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise presenting a prognosis and presenting an identification of prescribed medication by way of the avatar.

8. A method, comprising:

generating, by a processing system including a processor, an avatar

presenting, by the processing system, the avatar at a device of a user;

analyzing, by the processing system, a communication exchange between the user and the avatar to determine a desire to determine a medical status of the user;

requesting, by the processing system via the avatar, that the user perform physiological tests responsive to the desire to determine the medical status of the user;

receiving, by the processing system, physiological information from the physiological tests;

submitting, by the processing system, the physiological information and the communication exchange to equipment of a medical agent by way of the avatar;

receiving, by the processing system, from the equipment of the medical agent, a prognosis and prescription determined from the physiological information and the communication exchange; and

presenting, by the processing system, the user with the prognosis and the prescription by way of the avatar.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the generation of the avatar is based in part on statistical modeling that utilizes a demographic profile of the user and historical media consumption behavior of the user, wherein the avatar is generated prior to receiving the physiological information.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the medical agent corresponds to one of a physician or a nurse.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein the physiological information comprises one of a body temperature measurement of the user, a blood pressure measurement of the user, a heart rate measurement of the user, a height measurement of the user, a weight measurement of the user, or a body fat measurement of the user.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein the equipment of the medical agent is adapted to retrieve a physiological profile of the user to perform a diagnostic analysis of the physiological information.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein the processing system is communicatively coupled to an interactive media communication system for providing interactive television services.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the generating the avatar comprises:

retrieving a user profile of a user and an image of the user; and

generating an avatar based on the image of the user and based on statistical modeling that utilizes a demographic profile of the user and historical media consumption behavior of the user.

15. A machine-readable storage medium, comprising executable instructions that, when executed by a processing system including a processor, facilitate performance of operations, comprising:

conducting a communication exchange between a user and an avatar, wherein the communication exchange is associated with interactive media services for the user;

identifying a desire to determine a medical status of the user based on the communication exchange;

selecting a physiological measuring device from a group of physiological measuring devices as a selected physiological measuring device responsive to identifying the desire to determine the medical status of the user;

collecting physiological information associated with the user by the selected physiological measuring device;

accessing prior physiological information associated with the user;

comparing the physiological information associated with the user with the prior physiological information associated with the user to generate a comparison;

determining whether a health condition of the user has changed based on the comparison;

presenting the comparison and a notification that the health condition has changed to equipment of a medical agent of the user by way of the avatar;

receiving, from the equipment of the medical agent, one of a prognosis and prescription as determined by the medical agent from the comparison and a notification that the health condition has changed; and

presenting the user with the health condition, the prognosis and the prescription by way of the avatar.

16. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the operations further comprise generating the avatar correlated to a profile of the user.

17. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the selected physiological measuring device comprises a plurality of selected physiological measuring devices from among the group of physiological measuring devices.

18. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the physiological information comprises one of a body temperature measurement of the user, a blood pressure measurement of the user, a heart rate measurement of the user, a height measurement of the user, a weight measurement of the user, a body fat measurement of the user, or any combination thereof.

19. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the avatar is generated prior to receiving the physiological information of the user.

20. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the operations further comprise:

receiving recommendations from the medical agent for healthcare for the user; and

presenting to the user the recommendations by way of the avatar.