“Being able to track an overdose when a person may be by themselves could significantly improve the ability to save lives,” psychiatrist Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) in Bethesda, MD, told Science News.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 130 people die from an opioid overdose every day in the United States. And many of the individuals are alone and powerless to call for help.
"We're experiencing an unprecedented epidemic of deaths from opioid use, and it's unfortunate because these overdoses are a completely reversible phenomena if they're detected in time," Dr. Jacob Sunshine, an assistant professor of anesthesiology and pain medicine at the UW School of Medicine., told CNBC.
Researchers tested the app on 94 users in Vancouver at a legally sanctioned injection facility where people use heroin and fentanyl under medical supervision in an effort to prevent overdoses. The app detected 47 out of 49 cases where the user stopped breathing and 41 out of 47 cases where a patient was breathing too slowly. The app misjudged five of the 47 cases where the user was breathing frequently enough. Researchers also simulated overdoses with 20 volunteers who received standard anesthetic medications that caused 30 seconds of slow or no breathing. The app detected abnormal respiration in 19 patients.
The team, which is applying for FDA approval, anticipates that the app will be on the market in roughly eight months – and hopefully sooner if they get fast track priority approval by the FDA, researchers told CNBC.
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