New device would help those with chronic conditions get timely treatment

Husker engineer Eric Markvicka is developing a new approach for detecting acute exacerbations of chronic conditions.

With support from the National Institutes of Health, Markvicka is leading a project aimed at developing a wearable monitoring device that contains multiple types of sensors, enabling faster and more accurate detection of exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and chronic conditions like asthma, heart disease and other inflammatory disorders. Eventually, the technology may help everyday people monitor their overall health and attune to early warning signs of illness. 

The device will collect multiple streams of physiological data that are time-stamped, enabling the research team to better understand how these functions are linked — and how variations in these couplings might mark a change in health status. 

A four-year, $1.2 million grant from the NIH National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health supports the work. Markvicka is collaborating with Stephen Rennard and Ran Dai from the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Kate Cooper from the University of Nebraska at Omaha and Jenna Yentes from Texas A&M University.

Detecting and promptly treating acute exacerbations of COPD and other chronic conditions is an important avenue for reducing complications and mortality.

But in many cases, approaches for detecting flare-ups are flawed and time-consuming. The current gold standard for COPD — patient-reported questionnaires — require patients to frequently report their status, which is burdensome. They also require two to three days to establish a diagnosis, a lag that, in some cases, worsens outcomes.

“The goal is to create a wearable device for these patients that can be used as a medical diagnostic to detect acute exacerbations in a timelier manner: over the timespan of hours, as compared to days,” said Markvicka, Robert F. and Myrna L. Krohn Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering. “This framework can be applied to many other chronic conditions that are characterized by acute exacerbations that require timely treatment.”