Google Inc.

Jeffrey L Rogers

Brian Derek DeBusschere

James Moad Reid

This document describes techniques for, and systems that enable, in-ear health monitoring. The techniques described herein enable early detection of health conditions (e.g., contagious disease) through use of an in-ear health-monitoring and audio device. These techniques prompt a user, often through the user's smart phone, to listen to audio content through the device, which also takes the user's temperature. Through repetitive use, the techniques are capable of determining a temperature differential for the user, which aids in early detection of a contagious disease or other malady.

In-ear health monitoring

This document describes automated nursing assessments. Automation of the nursing assessment involves a nursing-assessment device that makes determinations of a person's mood, physical state, psychosocial state, and neurological state. To determine a mood and physical state of a person, video of the person is captured while the person is positioned in front of an everyday object, such as a mirror. The captured video is then processed according to human condition recognition techniques, which produces indications of the person's mood and physical state, such as whether the person is happy, sad, healthy, sick, vital signs, and so on. In addition to mood and physical state, the person's psychosocial and neurological state are also determined. To do so, questions are asked of the person. These questions are determined from a plurality of psychosocial and neurological state assessment questions, which include queries regarding how the person feels, what the person has been doing, and so on. The determined questions are asked through audible or visual interfaces of the nursing-assessment device. The person's responses are then analyzed. The analysis involves processing the received answers according to psychosocial and neurological state assessment techniques to produce indications of the person's psychosocial and neurological state.

Automated nursing assessment

This document describes techniques and apparatuses enabling determination of health state trends for a consistent patient situation. Various noninvasive health monitors can be used to sense a patient's situation and health states, including disease progression, at those states. These noninvasive health monitors may also act passively and in a patient's normal course of life, which enhances many patient's desire to submit to monitoring, as well as increase consistency of use, as in many cases the patient does little or nothing to cause his or her health monitoring and health-trend determination. With health states determined for a consistent patient situation, more accurate and more robust health trends can be determined.

Health state trends for a consistent patient situation

This document describes optical central venous pressure measurement. To determine the central venous pressure (CVP) of a person optically, video of a right side of the person's neck is captured. By way of example, a medical professional records a video of the right side of the person's neck using a smartphone. The right side of the person's neck is captured because it is where the person's external and internal jugular veins are located and pulsatile motions that are usable to measure CVP occur in those veins. The video is then processed according to video motion amplification techniques to generate a reconstructed video of the right side of the person's neck. In the reconstructed video, the pulsatile motion of the person's venous system that occurs at the right side of their neck is visually amplified. Using the reconstructed video, measurements are made of a distance between a peak of the visually-amplified pulsatile motion and an anatomical feature of the person. The measured distance between the peak of the visually-amplified pulsatile motion and the anatomical feature is used to determine CVP of the person. These techniques enable CVP to be determined without relying on estimates made by medical professionals.

Optical central venous pressure measurement

This document describes assessment of human physiological systems. Various noninvasive sensors can be used to detect vitals and other parameters and combined with mathematical models to assess the functional state of physiological systems. Conventional techniques can use invasive sensors to monitor cardiac pressures and volumes, along with pressure transit to quantify cardiovascular health. While known to be effective these invasive techniques often require surgery and are resource intensive limiting their use to cases where the risks and costs are of clear immediate benefit. In contrast, noninvasive health monitors present little if any risk and are easy to use. Further, the techniques described herein can determine trends in a person's cardiovascular health. With these trends, a person can know if the effort they expend to improve heart health actually makes a difference. Further, negative trends can be found that can spur people to improve their health or get medical attention.

Noninvasive determination of cardiac health and other functional states and trends for human physiological systems

This document describes assessing cardiovascular function using an optical sensor, such as through sensing relevant hemodynamics understood by pulse transit times, blood pressures, pulse-wave velocities, and, in more breadth, ballistocardiograms and pressure-volume loops. The techniques disclosed in this document use various optical sensors to sense hemodynamics, such as skin color and skin and other organ displacement. These optical sensors require little if any risk to the patient and are simple and easy for the patient to use.

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San Carlos, CA, United States of America

Jeffrey L Rogers