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UW-Madison BME 300 - Final Report - Skin Color Monitor

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Skin Color Monitor Jack Ho, Team Leader Brian Ginter, BSAC Joseph Yuen, BWIG Patrick Kurkiewicz, Communications BME 300/200 Department of Biomedical Engineering University of Wisconsin-Madison December 12, 2007 Client John G. Webster, Ph. D. Department of Biomedical Engineering Advisor William L. Murphy, Ph. D. Department of Biomedical Engineering2 Abstract Many menopausal women suffer from hot flashes, the symptoms include momentary sensation of heat, sweating, flushed face, and increased heart rates. In drug and other treatment development, developers use devices to record the accounts of hot flashes in women. Devices that accurately study hot flashes in women are especially useful in developing new drugs to help relieve the symptoms of hot flashes. Currently, the devices used to monitor hot flashes are big, bulky, and simply inconvenient to wearers. We hope to develop a device that will accurately monitor hot flashes by detecting the change in skin color during a hot flash. This device aimed to be small, comfortable, cheap, and effective. A LED will shine light onto the skin to be reflected and detected by a phototransistor which will produce leakage current proportional to the amount of light detected. This current will alter the output voltage of the device, allowing us to record changes in skin color. Our team has created a functional prototype consisting of a polycarbonate casing and a thin acrylic shield that keeps the skin immobilized during testing. A set of tests have been preformed to in which the device has shown its ability to detect color change.3 Table of Contents Page Abstract 2 Table of Contents 3 Problem Statement 4 Background Information 4 Current Devices 5 Design Constraints 6 Design Alternatives 7 Design Matrix 14 Circuitry 15 Early Tests 16 Final Design 18 Final Design Testing 23 Conclusion 28 Future Work 30 References 33 Appendix A: Project Design Specifications 35 Appendix B: Full Table of Final Design Data 374 Problem Statement Our client, Professor John Webster has presented us with the task of creating a device that uses changes in skin color to monitor and record hot flashes in women. The device is to be used in research and testing of experimental menopausal drugs. Traditionally, hot flashes have been monitored by use of a journal and or electrodes attached to the chest. However, our client indicated that the journal is extremely inaccurate and the use of current electrode devices is uncomfortable, inefficient, and expensive. Our device will detect when the skin becomes flushed using changes in skin color as an indicator. Our client has expressed interest in us creating a device that is capable of performing the said task using a small, comfortable, and relatively cheap design. Background Information The most common symptom of menopause in women is hot flashes. Hot flashes are sensations of heat a woman experiences that are marked by excessive sweating and flushed appearance of the skin. During a hot flash, the capillaries near the surface of a woman’s skin dilate in an attempt to cool the body (WedMD, 2007). This will give the skin a reddish appearance, similar to the flushed appearance one gets after exercise. Hot flashes often occur at night and can be very debilitating to sleep patterns (Stöppler, 2007). The length of a hot flash can fluctuate from several seconds to as long as an hour. Hot flashes occur in eighty five percent of women as they approach menopause and twenty to fifty percent have hot flashes that persist for years.5 Currently there are many treatments for the onset of hot flashes. Hormone replacement therapy is a common form of treatment for hot flashes. Also some antidepressants and other drugs have been found to help curb the symptoms (Wikipedia, 2007). Given these current options, there is still a great need for the development of drugs. For years, studies were performed with subjects using journals to record hot flashes (Webster, 2007). As stated before, this method is ineffective given their ambiguous and subjective nature. According to Dr. Jim Bindon from the University of Alabama: ―Originally, in the early 20th century, skin color was measured on a 34 tone scale. This was common practice until the 1950’s, when the spectrometer was created. Currently, one of the most commonly used devices to measure skin color is a reflectance spectrometer. A reflectance spectrometer shines a specific wavelength of light onto the skin and then measures how much light is reflected back to the skin. Based on these results, the machine is then capable of producing a quantitative report on the skin’s color‖ (Bindon, 2004). Current Devices Presently, research studies are often conducted with monitors that involve electrodes attached to the chest. These electrodes then run wires down the chest to a device kept on the belt. The electrodes measure differences in voltages across the wearer’s skin indicating a hot flash. A hot flash causes the skins sweat ducts to adjust which alters the difference in voltage across the skin (Webster, 2006).6 http://www.ufiservingscience.com/HFMon1.html An example of a current device on the market is the BIOLOG device, manufactured by UFI (UFI, 2007). While the device does well to monitor hot flashes, it presents several problems we plan to address with our device. First of all, it is too heavy (200 g) to be worn comfortably as well as too bulky (3.3 x 7 x 13 cm). The device also requires wires be run from electrodes to the device which also reduces comfort levels. Moreover the device only has a 24-hour battery life, which greatly restricts how well drug tests can be performed and also the length of those procedures. The BIOLOG system also is expensive; about $2,200 USD and the software needed for it is about $2,000 USD (UFI, 2007). To the best of our client’s and our knowledge, we will be the first to create a hot flash monitor based on changes in skin color (Webster, 2007). Design Constraints Our design must follow a specific set of constraints detailed by our client, Professor Webster. First, the device must provide detailed readings of skin color change every 10 seconds to indicate a hot flash. The


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UW-Madison BME 300 - Final Report - Skin Color Monitor

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