mHealth Technologies for Assessing Blood Perfusion in Chronic Wounds

Project Abstract Approximately 8.2 million Americans suffer from chronic wounds. Chronic wounds can be difficult to treat, and if left untreated, they can lead to serious infections, tissue damage, and even amputation. Besides, the cost of managing chronic wounds is very high – which requires frequent visits to healthcare providers, specialized wound care products, and in some cases, hospitalization. This can place a financial burden on both patients and the healthcare system. Blood perfusion, or the flow of blood to the tissues, is a critical factor in the healing of chronic wounds. Chronic wounds often result from poor blood flow to the affected area, which can lead to a lack of oxygen and nutrients necessary for the healing process. The long-term objective of this project is to improve wound care and impact wound treatment services by developing low-cost technologies that aid with chronic wound treatment and care. The primary objective of this application is to design, implement and validate mHealth-based blood perfusion assessment tools to empower individuals with chronic wounds in daily life. Building on our prior work, in this project we will enhance and validate a smartphone-based multi-spectral imaging sensor to obtain perfusion-related measures (Aim 1), conduct a clinical study to validate mHealth-based biomarkers with machine learning algorithms (Aim 2), and rigorously assess the tools in usability and learnability (Aim 3). The approach is innovative because it will explore and validate new mobile computing and data-driven techniques for wound care and blood perfusion assessment based on evidence-based ground truth. It holds the potential to advance the current standard of wound care for recovery after discharge from clinical therapies. These contributions are significant because they can extend the health self-management of our society through proactive health care and real-time intervention, and reduce the subjective bias and financial burden for patients, caregivers, and society.