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Medic alert

ASEE Prism, Oct 2001

SYDNEY, Australia

"Hey, wake up! You have a problem!" It's not quite that blunt, but diabetics may find themselves grateful for a new Australian engineering invention that will warn sleeping sufferers that they're in trouble.

The inventors say that the noninvasive device could also render obsolete the diabetics' daily chore of monitoring blood sugar levels by sampling blood or body fluids.

Hung Nguyen, a professor on Sydney's University of Technology engineering faculty, developed the gadget-dubbed Hypomon-to give diabetics an easy way to check on sugar levels as they sleep.

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Hypoglycemia, which is dangerously low blood sugar levels, can cause coma and death if untreated. It is a common complication for patients with a certain type of diabetes. Episodes commonly occur while patients are asleep-delaying treatment with potentially fatal consequences.

Nguyen's device employs electrodes attached to patients' skin, which measure skin moisture and heart activity. When there is a significant change, an alarm alerts the patient, parent, or caregiver in the form of a ring, buzz, or vibration.

"There's currently no comparably noninvasive monitor in the marketplace that identifies hypoglycemic conditions in diabetic patients using important physiological parameters such as skin moisture, heart signals, and brain waves," Nguyen says.

Small-scale clinical trials were completed at Sydney's Prince of Wales Hospital, a major teaching facility. Supervised by Stephen Colagiuri, director of the hospital's diabetes unit, these tests demonstrated that the device works well. The University of Technology is in discussion with several possible commercial developers of the Hypomon. The device could be on the market in around three years.

Though created to help diabetics while they sleep, Nguyen believes some patients will opt also to monitor blood glucose levels using his invention while awake by carrying the microprocessor-linked to electrodes on their skin-discreetly in a pocket.

The device can also be adapted to monitor infants susceptible to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and patients with cardiac problems.

Medic alert

ASEE Prism, Oct 2001

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