Innovative Design of Portable Stroke Detector

What it does

The device is portable and designed for pre-hospital diagnosis, allowing medical staff to quickly identify stroke type and provide treatments. It optimizes the stroke treatment chain, has four features (portability, rapid results, low cost, easy operation).

Your inspiration

Stroke is the leading cause of death globally, affecting 15 million annually and causing six million deaths. Ischemic stroke accounts for 69.6%-70.8% of all strokes and can be mistaken for hemorrhagic stroke. Administering thrombolytic therapy within three hours can lead to over 50% of patients making a full recovery. Traditional detection devices and mobile CT vehicles face issues like size, mobility challenges, complex procedures, and long detection times, increasing complications by 50%. The portable stroke detector enables pre-hospital treatment, identifying the type of stroke during3 hours which improves success and recovery rates.

How it works

When a stroke emergency occurs, medical staff will move the equipment to a suitable position, place the patient's head in the device, connect to a computer, and begin the detection process. The device uses a multi-frequency non-uniform background microwave imaging technology to emit microwaves in the 0.5-2 GHz range, and then the received microwave signals are inverted and visualized to form an image of the distribution of the brain's internal media characteristics. It's low energy consumption, no pollution, and no harm to the human body compared to traditional CT scans. In the analysis stage, the computer compares the diagnostic results with the normal brain media characteristics and uses artificial intelligence deep learning technology to react to the lesion location, size, and severity. Ai can also provide early warning for adverse events such as edema,and brain death, and analyze the rehabilitation quality. The whole process takes only 1-3 minutes.

Design process

The research into the pathology of stroke showed that timely differentiation and judgment of the two types of strokes and symptomatic thrombolysis treatment can significantly improve the rehabilitation rate.Market analysis showed that existing detection methods are expensive, time-consuming, have insufficient signal analysis sensitivity and accuracy, and patients are often unable to receive timely hospital testing and treatment after onset of the disease. Technical optimization is mainly reflected in the multi-frequency non-uniform background microwave imaging technology and artificial intelligence algorithm. Using 3D printing technology, a prototype was made to verify the feasibility of the technology principle. Subsequently, interviews and surveys were conducted with stroke patients and doctors to determine the general requirements of comfort for patients and simplicity and convenience of operation. The approximate size of the product was determined based on national standard human body dimensions and selecting the p99 percentile. After determining the overall structure, size, and color, further optimization of the user experience was carried out through iterative design and testing.

How it is different

1. Portable: The device is used in non-hospital mobile scenarios such as ambulances, which can realize pre-hospital testing and drug delivery, shorten the detection time and journey, and complete thrombolytic treatment within three hours, effectively improving the treatment rate. 2. Technical accuracy: multi-frequency point non-uniform background microwave imaging and artificial intelligence algorithm are adopted. The product technology has passed biological tests and radiation tests, which is safe and harmless to human beings. 3. Low cost: The probability of developing cerebral hemorrhage in new stroke cases in low- to middle-to-upper-income groups is almost twice that of high-income groups. At present, the hospital-related testing equipment is 100,000-200,000 yuan / set, and the portable stroke detector reduces the cost to 1-20,000 yuan / set. It can be used by low- and middle-income regions and groups around the world.

Future plans

At present, the domestic market for portable stroke detectors is estimated to be 4.04 million units by 2030, targeting the three major markets of public medical institutions, community families and basic emergency facilities in China. According to the public medical and emergency market of 150,000 yuan / unit and the family medical market 15,000 yuan / unit, the overall market size exceeds 100 billion yuan, and the product will continue to promote the market. At the same time, the equipment will continue to be improved and iteratively updated, providing regional adaptation design for global stroke patient detection.

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