Measure Blood Pressure and Heart Rate With a Mobile Camera

Can we monitor blood pressure using a camera and artificial intelligence? Yes, they can be used to extract cardiac signals from a person's forehead.

University of South Australia engineers has designed a system to remotely measure blood pressure by filming a person’s forehead and extracting cardiac signals using artificial intelligence algorithms.

Using the same remote-health technology they pioneered to monitor vital health signs from a distance, engineers from the University of South Australia and Baghdad’s Middle Technical University have designed a non-contact system to accurately measure systolic and diastolic blood pressure.

Blood Pressure Screening
Hypertension accounts for nearly 6% of deaths worldwide.

‘Artificial intelligence-enabled system along with a digital camera can measure your blood pressure from heart rate in a convenient way.’

This invention might replace the existing uncomfortable and cumbersome method of strapping an inflatable cuff to a patient’s arm or wrist, the researchers claim.

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In a new paper published in Inventions, the researchers describe the technique, which involves filming a person from a short distance for 10 seconds and extracting cardiac signals from two regions in the forehead, using artificial intelligence algorithms.

The systolic and diastolic readings were around 90 percent accurate, compared to the existing instrument (a digital sphygmomanometer) used to measure blood pressure, which is itself subject to errors.

Experiments were performed on 25 people with different skin tones and under changing light conditions, overcoming the limitations reported in previous studies.

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Monitoring blood pressure is essential to detect and manage cardiovascular diseases, the leading cause of global mortality, responsible for almost 18 million deaths in 2019. Furthermore, in the past 30 years, the number of adults with hypertension has risen from 650 million to 1.28 billion worldwide.

The health sector needs a system that can accurately measure blood pressure and assess cardiovascular risks when physical contact with patients is unsafe or difficult, such as during the recent COVID outbreak.

Blood Pressure Chart
Blood pressure is the pressure of the blood flowing through your blood vessels against the vessel walls. Just by entering you age, you can get the accurate range of blood pressure value.

If we can perfect this technique, it will help manage one of the most serious health challenges facing the world today. This cutting-edge technology has come a long way since 2017 when the UniSA and Iraqi research team demonstrated image-processing algorithms that could extract a human’s heart rate from drone video.

In the past five years, researchers have developed algorithms to measure other vital signs, including breathing rates from 50 meters away, oxygen saturation, temperature, and jaundice in newborns.

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Their non-contact technology was also deployed in the United States during the pandemic to monitor for signs of COVID-19 from a distance.

In the 5G era, AI technology is becoming increasingly important to gain a way of health monitoring to control the spread of diseases. Let us all hope that healthcare becomes easier in the future.

Source-Eurekalert