How can audio recordings help detect high blood pressure?
At least 1.28 billion adults worldwide have high blood pressure, and nearly half of them don't know it. High blood pressure isn't always timely to be tested or detected, and if left untreated it can lead to heart attack, stroke, kidney failure and vision loss, according to the American Heart Association .
Samsung has used technology inside its smartwatches to detect blood pressure, but these watches are expensive, and using this technology in popular smartphones could be a lifesaver.
So Klick Labs started looking at voice recordings as a way to detect vital signs using a smartphone and developed a smartphone -based app that relies on voice recordings to detect signs of chronic high blood pressure, with some help from artificial intelligence to analyze the data.
How do audio recordings help detect high blood pressure?
In Klick Labs' latest research published in the journal IEEE Access , the team analyzed voice samples from 245 people, evaluating audio recordings collected 6 times a day over the course of two weeks. The team then developed gender-based predictive models, documenting a new method for voice analysis.
The study was able to detect high blood pressure through voice with 84% accuracy in women and 77% accuracy in men. According to the company’s senior vice president Yan Fossat, the research team is now looking to expand the scope of voice-assisted analysis to detect non-chronic hypertension.
Klick Labs looks for specific details in audio recordings, such as changes in pitch and volume, to prove they are linked to high blood pressure. The app isn't available to the public yet, and is undergoing further tweaks. It's expected to arrive on iPhone and Android devices in the near future.
“Medical tools are the standard for detecting blood pressure,” says Yan Fossat. So while Klick Labs isn’t a complete way to detect high blood pressure, it can alert people to the possibility of developing the condition, helping them get tested and start treatment earlier.
Challenges facing Klick Labs application:
The app aims to screen people and alert them when they should go to the doctor for a diagnosis. However, there are some challenges that need to be addressed before the team can move forward with a widespread rollout of their app. The most notable of these challenges is that the study participants were limited to one ethnic group, and their number was not sufficient.
On the other hand, the team is also looking for ways to reduce the number of recordings required for proper analysis, and for audio recordings, some training is needed to get the necessary audio data from them, which is another challenge before launching the app.
Conclusion:
The idea of using smartphones to analyze chronic high blood pressure via audio recordings is a huge leap forward in health tracking, eliminating the need for expensive wearables to track these indicators, and taking an approach that could enable health organizations to save millions of people at risk around the world.