Hand held device to read your vital signs in a jiffy

Washington: Engineers at Johns Hopkins University have developed a hand-held, battery-powered device that can quickly read vital signs using a patient's lips and fingertips. Called MouthLab, the “smart” 3D-printed device uses mouthpiece and thumb pad sensors to quickly test a patient's blood pressure, breathing, blood oxygen, heart rate and heartbeat pattern.

The device can also take a basic electrocardiogram (ECG). The device may be able to detect early signs of medical emergencies such as heart attacks or avoid unnecessary ambulance trips and emergency room visits when a patient's vital signs are good.

Because it monitors vital signs by mouth, future versions of the device will be able to detect chemical cues in blood, saliva and breathe that act as markers for serious health conditions. The device can replace the bulky, restrictive monitors now used to display patients' vital signs in hospitals.

The MouthLab prototype consists of a small, flexible mouthpiece like those that scuba divers use, connected to a hand-held unit about the size of a telephone receiver. The mouthpiece holds a temperature sensor and a blood volume sensor. The thumb pad on the hand-held unit has a miniaturized pulse oximeter, a smaller version of the finger-gripping device used in hospitals, which uses beams of light to measure blood oxygen levels.