Selfies To Measure Blood Pressure Accurately

 New technology ables selfies to measure blood pressure, says the new research conducted at the University of Toronto. Integrating the technology called transdermal optical imaging (TOI) to the smartphone camera could do this job.

 

Smartphones carry optical sensors that can capture the red light that our hemoglobin reflects on the skin. In turn, these sensors allow TOI to detect and measure the change in the blood flow.

 

The research team has published a press release with the research paper.

 

During the study, scientists have detected the blood pressure of 1,328 adults by making two-minute videos specifying their faces.

 

For the current experiment, researchers used the iPhone camera.

 

Kang Lee led the study. He is a professor in applied psychology and human development at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Also, he is the co-founder of Nuralogix which has launched the app ‘Anura’. That app uses transdermal optical imaging software to monitor the resting heart rate and stress levels through the 30-second face video of the users.

 

The captured video could tell the blood flow in different regions of the face. Kang Lee said, “you can get a lot of information” from that blood flow.

 

According to the lead author, lots of research is required to be sure that the findings are accurate. Additionally, he elaborates that as the people with very fair and very dark skin colors have not been tested, more research is needed.

 

To improve the app and make it workable, researchers need the values from the patients with hypertension as well. Lee tells that it is a harder job as many such patients are already on medicine. And they couldn’t tell them to leave their medicine and participate in the study.

Researchers believe that such applications have the potential to improve health services for the people of rural and remote areas.

This latest research was published in the medical journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging.