A smartwatch that detects attacks and emotional stress

January 12, 2020

Whether we are for or against the wave of smart health connected objects that is revolutionizing our daily lives, we must at least recognize that they are mostly useful. Even very useful, like this smartwatch, Embrace, designed to detect an attack or emotional stress.

Among the smart health connected objects very popular with the public, we find smart health connected bracelets and smart health connected watches. Like activity trackers, these are equipped with sensors allowing data to be collected throughout the day on their user. Number of steps taken, calories burned, average speed… This monitoring system is of increasing interest to manufacturers and the medical field, with a view to develop devices capable of facilitating the exchange of information between the patient and the doctor.

Record electrodermal activity

As chief engineer at the MIT Media Lab, Dr. Rosalind Picard is closely studying what can be achieved with the technology available today. In an article published on the website, KQED Science, journalist Jessica Carew Kraft, describes the device developed by the scientist and its functionality. This, unlike activity trackers used by the general public, don't just collect the usual data, but has a sensor that will allow him to collect medical information.

"Dr. Picard hopes the sensor, which measures the electrical response of the skin, will soon be able to save lives by predicting major health events such as seizures “, Writes the journalist. The smart health watch was designed by Empatica, a team of creators developing portable devices fitted with medical quality sensors. Among her duties, she records electrodermal activity (EDA in English, for Electrodermal Activity), a biological activity that is recorded on the surface of the skin.

(Embed) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnxnz2MEc7U (/ embed) 

She is the reflects the activity of the sweat glands and the autonomic nervous system. The electrodermal activity is useful in particular for studying the involuntary behavior of an individual. The data collected by the smartwatch will then be sent wirelessly to the user's smartphone. In itself, this technology is not new since it is already used to perform polygraph tests, the famous lie detector.

Communicate better and act better?

What changes with this new sensor is the fact of ability to continuously read information provided by the human body, allowing constant monitoring of the emotional state of patients, associating for example an increase in breathing with a psychological or physiological excitement. Dr. Picard's project goes further than “simple emotional follow-up”. The doctor’s team was able to show that the watch's sensors could be useful for people with autism, revealing emotional episodes that could not be expressed verbally.

Responses to episodes of seizures in people with autism vary, sometimes being violent. The information collected by the device could, according to Dr. Picard, enable physicians to make better decisions on how to respond to these crises.

Never alone again in the event of an epilepsy attack

Other crises, like those caused by epilepsy could be anticipated with the device. "When people with epilepsy wear Embrace, they will receive an alert when something unusual is happening, such as a seizure attack. The information will be transmitted to their smartphone and then to their parents, roommates, nurse or anyone else who can help them" explains Embrace's Indiegogo page.

More generally, the smartphone application can be configured so that, for example, the device vibrates when the user reaches a certain stress threshold, before it is too great and can represent a potential danger to health. The application will also allow you to better understand what will have been the sources of stress for the user during his day.

The project campaign ended in January and has successfully raised $ 782,865. The next step for the Embrace smartwatch to materialize is to complete the FDA approval process, and tocomplete the production of the first models for donors to the campaign.

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