tagline – anything can go here.
Medical
Bandaide
IV
Monitoring Patch
Tens Machine
Therapist
Paramedics
Non-Medical
Mediation device
Tooth Brush
Belt / socks / clothing
Applications
Military
Bus Drivers
Athletes
Police
Children / People on the autism spectrum
Teachers
Positions of authority
People with high stress jobs
Truck drivers (sleepiness)
Spa
Right now our society doesn’t monitor mental health except in crisis situations. when the fact is, we should all be monitoring our mental health all the time to make it better to live richer, fuller, happier lives.
The system starts with a device that comes into contact with the skin, either by adhesive or wearable technology. It would be standard issue as part of the admission process to the hospital. So either incorporated into their wrist identification band, or an adhesive sticker worn on the skin.
The system links to the main hospital record system where the information is kept along with your other vital statistics. It will monitor
changes in emotion during the patients stay in the hospital. This allows the doctors and nurses the ability to view a patients emotional history and how it relates to their pain levels. It can also help to determine if the patient is feeling better or worse which will indicate if treatment is successful or not. This will be very helpful with drug treatment with patients that have verbal communication issues, are unconscious, or are faking it.
The users would be the patient, doctor, nurses and family. Information would be shared more quickly and creates a vehicle to communicate, giving everyone a reason to talk to each other.
I felt good when…..
I felt bad when….
These can be marked or benchmarked and used to discover what was occurring at that time that may or caused or helped the situation. Did you move wrong and it hurt? Did the sun come through the window and make you feel better?
What’s your pain level? How do you define that?
Through scientific research it has been shown that your skin conductance when your pain level changes. So much of our fears and dislike of a hospital is knowing it’s going to hurt. If we could find some way to quantify pain levels, then maybe more attention could be placed on ways to admitigate those pain levels. Not necessarily through mediation, but possibly through meditation, massage, acupuncture or just a nice room full of plants that made you feel like your outside.
The goal in almost all medical systems is faster healing, less medication, less pain and improved overall health with out readmitance to the hospital. If there was a way to address stress and or emotions at a point before they become unmanagable, then blood pressure would go down, strokes would decrease, peoples enjoyment would increase. These all could take place by being taught techniques of bio-feed back through their time in the health care system, in the hospital or having procedures done.
One of the more difficult aspects of medical care for the caregiver is that they patient doesn’t always know or isn’t always honest with how they feel. Especially with older patients because they “don’t want to be a burden” therefore they are not always accurate with their assessments. Because cultuly it’s good to be strong, but sometimes you need help. It will be a huge help with children as anxiety levels could be delt with at the time of arising instead at the time of crisis.
WHAT AM I TRYING TO MAKE?
I am trying to make something for the health care industry that can be used as a vehicle to keep the health care system in touch with the patients emotions, body, mind and mental state.
The thing that fascinates me the most is skin conductance. Because we have the ability to measure it very finely. In minuscule increments, therefore we can detect changes very quickly. Skin conductance works off the principle of moisture on your skin produced by sweat glands. The more moisture produced the less resistance there is an electrical current. So, by measuring the amount of time it takes for electricity to get from one point to another point we can measure in changes.
Now, given your sweat glands are one of the few parts of your body which the nervous system can not be controlled that is why skin conductance is used in “lie detector tests”. By using the skin conductance data with other markers, such as blood pressure, my hope is that a pattern will emerge to show mood and pain levels.
It’s my goal, with using this, that this could create the open dialogue with doctors and nurses about mood and pain in such a way that it is common.
WHAT DOES IT DO?
It detects changes emotional state and gives a measurement for those emotional states. It can’t say you are angry or laughing but it can say some levels have change which indicates a change in emotions.
WHAT IS IT USED FOR?
It would be used for monitoring patients a or people like police who need to keep their emotions in check in order for them to do an optimal job.
Patients – an example would be, a patient moves wrong and experiences a great deal of pain, the patient should of waited to get help or call for help but they didn’t. Therefore an alarm would trigger at the nurses station that the patients status has changed, the nurse would realize they need attention and could care for the patient right away. This would lead to more compassionate care as nurses would have a better idea how their patients are feeling and as a result might require less monitoring, less medication and less time in a hospital or care unit.
A patient is in the ICU and can not speak. The nurse is unable to know what level their pain is at, but their skin conductance is indicating a change, care can then be administered to the patient. Thus giving the nurses a way to monitor their emotional state even if they cannot verbally communicate so they don’t experience ICU Psychosis.
kurtis kracke 