By the end of the year, the public may have access to a new respiratory app that will help people treat and manage long-term Covid, asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
The app, which the developers hope can also help with rehabilitation after chest or abdominal surgery, will be tested in two separate trials with outpatients at the Royal Free Hospital in north London and general practitioners in the area in May.
If successful, it could soon be available to tens of millions of people in the UK with asthma, longstanding Covid and COPD.
The Lungy Health app, developed by scientists at University College London and London-based startup Pi-a, uses screen images to guide patients through breathing exercises that can help treat their condition.
A camera and microphone can monitor a person’s breathing and progress. This reduces the need for personal checks and therapy.
Around one in five adults in the UK experience respiratory symptoms such as shortness of breath due to conditions such as Covid lung disease, which affects up to 2 million people in the UK, asthma (8 million) and COPD (1.2 million) – and many of them could benefit from the new app, according to lead developer Luke Hale.
Annual costs for asthma and COPD for the NHS in the UK are estimated at £3bn and £1.9bn respectively.
“I am very happy about this because a large proportion of patients can benefit from it. This app has been designed to be widely scalable and accessible to everyone, allowing any patient with a smartphone to access and use this technology,” Dr. Hale, NHS physician, UCL researcher and founder of Pi-a.
“Currently, 194,900 people are waiting for a respiratory consultant, of which 68,000 have been waiting for a specialist for more than 18 weeks. And this will be a very small percentage of all patients with breathing problems. It will only be those with poorly controlled breathing problems or new lung problems.
“We have interest from US companies and start-ups that want to integrate breath detection technology into their own platforms – this will allow scaling the potential much faster. It’s possible that this breath-detecting smartphone technology “supports” a number of other apps, he said.
Professor Tony Young, National Clinical Director of Innovation for NHS England and founder of the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Program, who is not associated with the app but is familiar with the project, said: “I am very excited about Lungy Health’s technology and can see how it works. used. Cases develop in patients with respiratory diseases.”
“Respiratory disease is a huge burden on the NHS, especially at this time of year, and technologies like Lungy Health can help alleviate that burden by allowing patients to monitor and manage their condition at home.”
“Innovation is vital to the future of the NHS, and new technologies can make a huge difference for both staff and patients,” added Professor Young, who is also an NHS surgeon and director of medical innovation at Anglia Ruskin University.
The application has a number of visual elements that help the user to relax, guide him through the process and maintain interest.
According to Dr. Hale, exercise has therapeutic benefits associated with breathing exercises such as: B. Reduction of respiratory complications, strengthening of the respiratory muscles, reduction of respiratory infections, and increased physical performance.
It also has psychological benefits, such as “improved awareness and reduced stress and anxiety,” he said.
He added that the previous “Wellness” prototype, which used breathing exercises to relieve anxiety and stress instead of breathing problems, suggested that the final Lungy application would be successful.
“The wellness version is very well received with over 10,000 downloads as of December and a 4.9 star rating. This shows that people are genuinely enjoying the new technology, which will make a huge difference to the adoption of Lungy Health, as one of the most difficult obstacles for users is the experience of interacting with a new smartphone through taking a breath.
If this is confirmed by upcoming studies, Dr. Hale that the app could enable many more people to do “breathing exercises” and greatly improve compliance with these breathing exercises. The app could also ease pressure on the NHS.
At this stage, it may be difficult for people to do their homework on breathing exercises after a personal session with a physical therapist, as they are usually given a worksheet and must do it on their own.
It is hoped that the application will make the process more fun and easier.
The app could also potentially replace the need for spirometer tests to check how a patient is doing, which can be done over the phone at home instead. Spirometry tests involve a visit to a GP or hospital and involve a plastic device called a spirometer which is relatively expensive (£15-20) and can only be used once. A separate study, also starting in May, will examine the effectiveness of apps as a replacement for spirometers.
If this is effective, it means that the application can give an early indication of worsening lung disease or show improvement. It will not be used in the primary diagnosis of lung diseases, which often require additional equipment.
A spokesman for Asthma + Lung UK said: “There is an urgent need for new ways to treat asthma. Asthma care in the UK has not improved significantly in recent years, despite the widespread availability of treatments that work for most people.
“Digital technology delivered through smartphones can help people manage asthma on a grand scale by better understanding their condition, recognizing and preventing their condition from getting worse, and how they do it, so they can respond if their condition worsens.”
When performed correctly, breathing exercises can be an easy and effective way to improve physical and mental health, improve respiratory function, exercise tolerance, and reduce respiratory infections.
Existing methods for teaching breathing exercises include providing patients with worksheets and often an incentive spirometer: a disposable plastic device that inhibits inhalation and encourages deep breathing. Breathing commitment is generally poor (hopefully the app can increase it significantly) and the demand for respiratory physios has skyrocketed due to Covid, an aging population, and the rising prevalence of respiratory disease.
Respiratory and mental illnesses are putting a huge strain on NHS services and society. Before Covid, the cost of respiratory illnesses was estimated at £9.9bn a year, with respiratory illness hospitalizations rising three times faster than other hospitalizations and every week 10,000 new lung disease diagnoses in the UK.
The developers say Lungy Health is unique in that it uses a camera and microphone together (and provides much more data) to measure respiration, allowing for more accurate and consistent measurements of respiratory function.
Other approaches use pure machine learning to determine different phases of respiration (on, off) and respiration rate.
Source: I News
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