New app tracks health of heart and lung patients

A new smartphone app that monitors patients suffering from chronic cardiopulmonary diseases by analysing the way they walk can warn doctors at the first sign of trouble.

Using the health-tracking app, MoveSense, developed by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a patient’s oxygen saturation level can be passively monitored with medical accuracy.

Oxygen saturation is a standard measure of health status.

Unlike other methods of measuring oxygen saturation levels, which detect sharp drops causing desaturation, MoveSense continuously monitors saturation, making the resultant patterns possible to model accurately – and the patient is only required to carry a smartphone while walking.
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