Systems and methods of determining location using a medical device

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10376169-B2
Application number	US-201615077995-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 23, 2016
Priority date	Mar 24, 2015
Publication date	Aug 13, 2019
Grant date	Aug 13, 2019

Abstract

According to at least one aspect, a wearable medical device is provided. The wearable medical device may include a sensing electrode to sense an electrocardiogram signal of a patient, a therapy electrode to provide treatment to the patient, a garment to be worn about a torso of the patient and receive the sensing electrode and the therapy electrode, and a controller operatively coupled to the sensing electrode and the therapy electrode. The controller may be configured to determine a current location of the wearable medical device based on a previous position of the medical device and at least a speed and a direction of movement of the wearable medical device.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A wearable medical device comprising:
a plurality of sensing electrodes to sense an electrocardiogram signal of a patient;
a plurality of therapy electrodes to provide treatment to the patient;
a garment to be worn about a torso of the patient and receive the plurality of sensing electrodes and the plurality of therapy electrodes;
a motion detector;
a processor coupled to the plurality of sensing electrodes, the plurality of therapy electrodes, and the motion detector; and
a memory communicatively coupled to the processor and comprising instructions that when executed by the processor cause the processor to:
receive movement information comprising at least acceleration information and heading information from the motion detector;
detect a movement of the wearable medical device from the movement information received from the motion detector, wherein the movement of the wearable medical device comprises a distance traveled by the wearable medical device and a direction traveled by the wearable medical device; and
estimate a current location of the wearable medical device relative to a previous location of the wearable medical device using dead reckoning based at least in part on the distance traveled by the wearable medical device and the direction traveled by the wearable medical device.

2. The wearable medical device of claim 1 , wherein the motion detector includes a gyroscope, an accelerometer, or a magnetometer.

3. The wearable medical device of claim 1 , comprising an antenna coupled to the processor and wherein the instructions cause the processor to transmit, via the antenna, the location of the wearable medical device to an external system.

4. The wearable medical device of claim 1 , wherein the instructions cause the processor to track the location of the wearable medical device at least in part by identifying a starting location of the wearable medical device, determining an estimated movement of the wearable medical device based on the detected movement of the wearable medical device, and determining the location of the wearable medical device based on the starting location and the estimated movement.

5. The wearable medical device of claim 1 , wherein the instructions cause the processor to administer a physical activity test to the patient and measure a distance traveled by the patient during the physical activity test.

6. The wearable medical device of claim 5 , wherein the instructions cause the processor to monitor a gait of the patient during the physical activity test and determine a likelihood of the patient developing a form of dementia based on the gait of the patient.

7. The wearable medical device of claim 5 , wherein the physical activity test includes a six minute walk test.

8. The wearable medical device of claim 5 , comprising an antenna coupled to the processor and wherein the instructions cause the processor to generate a patient report based on the administered physical activity test and transmit, via the antenna, the patient report to an external system.

9. The wearable medical device of claim 1 , comprising a memory coupled to the processor to store building map information and wherein the instructions cause the processor to track the location of the wearable medical device within a building based on the detected movement of the wearable medical device and the building map information.

10. The wearable medical device of claim 1 , comprising an antenna coupled to the processor to receive location information.

11. The wearable medical device of claim 10 , wherein the instructions cause the processor to determine whether the location information is available from the antenna, determine the location of the wearable medical device based on the location information responsive to the location information being available, and determine the location of the wearable medical device based on the detected movement of the wearable medical device responsive to the location information being unavailable.

12. The wearable medical device of claim 10 , comprising a switch to control a capability of the wearable medical device to receive the location information from the antenna and wherein the instructions cause the processor to determine, based on a state of the switch, the location of the wearable medical device from one of: the detected movement of the wearable medical device and the location information.

13. The wearable medical device of claim 10 , wherein the instructions cause the processor to attempt to determine the location of the wearable medical device based on the location information within a predetermined period of time and determine the location of the wearable medical device based on the detected movement of the wearable medical device responsive to failing to determine the location of the wearable medical device based on the location information within the predetermined period of time.

14. The wearable medical device of claim 10 , wherein the location information includes a signal from a global positioning system, a BLUETOOTH beacon, a WLAN access point, or a radio frequency identification tag.

15. The wearable medical device of claim 1 , wherein the processor is configured to estimate the current location of the wearable medical device relative to the previous location of the wearable medical device using dead reckoning in response to at least one of detecting a loss of consciousness of the patient and detecting that the patient has fallen.

16. A wearable medical device comprising:
a plurality of sensing electrodes to sense an electrocardiogram signal of a patient;
a plurality of therapy electrodes to provide treatment to the patient;
a garment to be worn about a torso of the patient and receive the plurality of sensing electrodes and the plurality of therapy electrodes; and
a processor operatively coupled to the plurality of sensing electrodes and the plurality of therapy electrodes; and
a memory communicatively coupled to the processor and comprising instructions that when executed by the processor cause the processor to:
detect a movement of the wearable device comprising a speed of the wearable medical device and a direction of movement of the wearable medical device; and
estimate a current location of the wearable medical device by dead reckoning relative to a previous location of the wearable medical device based at least in part on the speed of the wearable medical device and the direction of movement of the wearable medical device.

17. The wearable medical device of claim 16 , wherein the instructions cause the processor to identify an elapsed time since the wearable medical device was at the previous location.

18. The wearable medical device of claim 17 , wherein the instructions cause the processor to identify a distance traveled by the wearable medical device based on the elapsed time and a previous speed of the wearable medical device.

19. The wearable medical device of claim 18 , wherein the instructions cause the processor to identify the current location based on the distance traveled by the wearable medical device and the previous location.

20. The wearable medical device of claim 16 , comprising a motion detector coupled to the processor and wherein the instructions cause the processor to identify the previous speed of the wearable medical device based on detected motion of the wearable medical device.

21. The wearable medical device of claim 16 , wherein the processor is configured to estimate the current location of t

Assignees

• Zoll Medical Corp

Inventors

• Kaib Thomas E
• Johnson Guy

Classifications

• A61N1/3904

  External heart defibrillators [EHD] · CPC title

• A61B5/1118

  Determining activity level · CPC title

• A61N1/0484

  Garment electrodes worn by the patient · CPC title

• A61B5/112

  Gait analysis · CPC title

• A61B5/1113

  Local tracking of patients, e.g. in a hospital or private home · CPC title