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Do you know Scientists Built a Clever Necklace to Aid Smoking Cessation? A smart necklace that resembles a lapis blue pendant was developed by Northwestern Medicine researchers, and it has much higher detection accuracy than past systems. It accomplishes this by capturing heat signatures with thermal sensors.
SmokeMon
According to a press release on Monday, Feb. 13, SmokeMon is a necklace that completely preserves a smoker’s privacy by only observing heat and not visuals.
This innovative device goes much beyond a person’s daily cigarette usage, claims the study’s principal investigator Nabil Alshurafa, associate professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
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In a statement, Alshurafa said, “We can identify when the cigarette is being lit, when the individual holds it to their lips and takes a puff, how much they inhale, how long they hold the cigarette in their mouth for, and how much time passes between puffs.”
These characteristics are referred to as smoking topography, and they are important because they allow researchers to calculate how much harmful carbon monoxide smokers are exposed to, as well as the relationship between chemical exposure and conditions like cancer, heart disease, lung disease, and stroke.
By using smoking topography and comprehending its relationship to relapses in a person who has already quit smoking, it also aids smokers in giving up the habit.
Wearable technology could foretell relapses by monitoring a person’s smoking habits. Additionally, it detects when an intervention is required and alerts a health coach to stop the relapse.
The researchers will also look into how well the device detects electronic cigarette topography and puffs from cigarettes.
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Death by Smoking
According to estimates, smoking causes more than 8 million deaths worldwide each year. Smoking continues to be the leading cause of more than 480,000 deaths in the US each year, or one in every five fatalities.
In the US, 12.5% of adults smoke, and it is predicted that in 2018, lost productivity and healthcare costs will total more than $600 billion.
In order to increase the success rate of smoking cessation programmes, Alshurafa remarked, “we can now start testing the usefulness of this device in preventing relapse in smokers who are going to quit.”
Additionally, the group will examine whether real-time feedback and treatments can be more effective than standard medical treatment.
ACM Proceedings on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable, and Ubiquitous Technologies will publish the work.
