Sensor necklace aims to increase elderly and clinical trial participant drug ...(ill passing through it. The magnetic...),Health

The magnetic sensors are distributed in different orientations, allowing the pill to be detected regardless of its orientation when it passes through the patients esophagus. The sensors are driven by a control unit on the necklace that consists of a battery, power management circuitry, low-power microcontroller and radiofrequency wireless transceiver. The prototype MagneTrace necklace with six sensors weighs less than one ounce.

Preliminary results testing the artificial neck have shown 94.4 percent correct detections when the magnetic tracer passed through the esophagus detection zone and about 6 percent false positives when it passed through areas not in the detection zone, said Ghovanloo.

Another benefit to MagneTrace is that it monitors ingestion, whereas technologies currently on the market for monitoring drug compliance are typically non-ingestion monitors, which can be easily deceived by the users, either deliberately or unintentionally. One such technology takes advantage of radio frequency identification technology by sending a signal when a pill breaks a printed conductive interconnect while being removed from its package.

Other devices just tell the doctor if a pill bottle was opened. These devices are not smart enough to tell how many pills, if any, were removed from the bottle, nor if the pill was actually ingested by the intended patient, said Ghovanloo.

One device that actually monitors ingestion uses an optical sensor to detect a fluorescent dye incorporated in the medication as it enters the bloodstream.

The problem with this technology is that a patient must add an additional chemical to his/her body and the potential long-term negative side effects of the fluorophores on the human body have not yet been well studied, explained Ghovanloo.

MagneTrace, on the other hand, was designed so that it would have no effect on the body. Multiple strong magnets in the g
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