Astronaut Health-Monitoring Technology with Earth Applications

Posted by Eric Stevens

http://www.nsbri.org/NewsPublicOut/Release.epl?r=119

This article describes a new "Star Trek-like" technology called Venus designed as a noninvasive way to monitor blood and tissue chemistry in astronauts. The device shines near-infrared light into the skin and analyzes the reflected light to determine tissue oxygen, pH, and metabolic rate. It was designed for spacewalking astronauts who need to know how quickly they are using up the oxygen in their suits. However, the article also mentions several use cases for people on Earth, such as emergency medical technicians treating patients in ambulances and sending the data directly to the hospital, doctors monitoring pediatric or intensive care patients, and athletes or physical therapy patients using it to determine the most beneficial training programs.

Another possible use case:
Mountain climber knows when it's time to rest or turn back.
A team of mountain climbers are scaling a challenging mountain such as Everest. The team leader wants to make sure everyone survives the trip. The climbers all wear the Venus device. If one of them experiences a dangerous drop in tissue oxygen, the device alerts him and his companions. They make sure he either takes a rest or turns back, based on pre-established safety rules.

The device is a prototype and the article does not explicitly identify standards. But these devices will need to employ standards if they are to encode this health information and transmit it over a network.