The proposed research involves a combination of a smart inhaler system, which has the capability to improve asthma patients’ adherence to treatments and keep their condition under control, along with real time monitoring of environmental triggers and various lung function parameters.

Objectives:

• Developing a smart inhaler system which monitors the environmental conditions of an asthma patient, thereby indicating the air quality, helping the diagnosis and control easier.

• Monitors the blood oxygen saturation level and the pulmonary capacity of the patient in real time, which can be accessed by the physician.

• Enables the physician to distinguish and diagnose the conditions of asthma and COPD and understand the severity of the condition.

• To develop an android mobile application that can be accessed by the patient, the doctor and the care taker

• Keeps and displays the record of the exact number of times, the date and time at which the inhaler has been used and the amount of medicine consumed from the inhaler. The mobile application can be checked to know the history of the patient whenever required.

• Gives timely notification and reminders to patients for taking medicine. The application also notifies if the patient forgets to take the inhaler along with them.

• Instructs the patient of the correct and appropriate usage of inhaler through a digital display on the device.

Expected Outcomes:

The proposed research incorporates the inhaler technology used by asthma patients along with real time tracking of the environmental conditions that triggers asthma and COPD. It helps the doctor to diagnose the asthmatic in an efficient manner.

The system measures different asthma triggers such as dust, smoke, humidity, temperature, pressure, CO2 content of the surrounding atmosphere. The device analyzes these factors, determines and gives a clear indication of air quality to the patient. The patient can use this data to self control the asthma. The complete set of indications, alerts and recording of data can be done on a real time basis using an android mobile application which is connected to the device using Bluetooth. The system makes it easy to track, understand and manage asthma in a controlled manner.

The device tracks where, when and how often asthmatics use their medication. The doctor and the patient can easily get the exact count of number of times the inhaler has been used. Over time, the application learns about the medication use and can help the patient to identify their triggers and manage their asthma. The next step of the research is to develop a mini portable unit that can be attached to the inhaler for measuring the severity of asthma and monitoring the response of lungs to treatment.

Monitoring cough and wheezing will not provide accurate judgments of the severity of asthma in a patient. The proposal aims at developing a low-cost, portable unit built around MEMS pressure sensor for detecting patient’s airflow and pressure moving in and out of the lungs. With this, COPD can be detected in advance, by distinguishing between the level of asthma and COPD. The oximeter, which forms an integral part of the inhaler, measures blood oxygen saturation level during asthma.