Effective CPR Procedure With Real Time Evaluation and Feedback Using Smartphones

IEEE J Transl Eng Health Med. 2014 May 30:2:2800111. doi: 10.1109/JTEHM.2014.2327612. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

Timely cardio pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) can mean the difference between life and death. A trained person may not be available at emergency sites to give CPR. Normally, a 9-1-1 operator gives verbal instructions over the phone to a person giving CPR. In this paper, we discuss the use of smartphones to assist in administering CPR more efficiently and accurately. The two important CPR parameters are the frequency and depth of compressions. In this paper, we used smartphones to calculate these factors and to give real-time guidance to improve CPR. In addition, we used an application to measure oxygen saturation in blood. If blood oxygen saturation falls below an acceptable threshold, the person giving CPR can be asked to do mouth-to-mouth breathing. The 9-1-1 operator receives this information real time and can further guide the person giving CPR. Our experiments show accuracy >90% for compression frequency, depth, and oxygen saturation.

Keywords: CPR; depth of compression; frequency of compression; oxygen saturation; smartphones.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant CNS-0751205 and Grant CNS-0821736.