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EP-3381351-B1 - SYSTEM FOR ASSESSING A HEALTH CONDITION OF A USER

EP3381351B1EP 3381351 B1EP3381351 B1EP 3381351B1EP-3381351-B1

Inventors

  • ZAKHAROV, Dr. Pavel
  • MROCHEN, Prof. Dr. Michael

Dates

Publication Date
20260506
Application Date
20170329

Claims (12)

  1. A system (100) for assessing a health condition of a user comprising: at least one light source adapted to transmit a first optical signal to an eye of the user, the light source being mountable on a wearable device; a sensor unit (105) comprising at least one eye sensor (110) adapted to obtain a second optical signal reflected from the eye of the user, wherein the sensor unit (105) can be mounted on the wearable device; a monitoring unit (107) connected to the sensor unit (105) and adapted to derive data related to an eye activity of the user by processing the second optical signal; a storage unit (109) connected to the monitoring unit (107) and adapted to store the derived data related to the eye activity of the user and recorded data; and wherein the monitoring unit (107) is further adapted to obtain the recorded data from the storage unit (109) and to assess the health condition of the user by comparing the recorded data with the derived data related to the eye activity of the user, and wherein the system (100) further comprises an additional sensor adapted to obtain a third optical signal reflected from the eye of the user, wherein the additional sensor is a camera of a smartphone, and the third optical signal is images captured by the camera, characterized in that : the monitoring unit (107) is adapted to perform an image analysis algorithm, which is adapted to identify blinks of the user by using the captured images and is adapted to relate the identified blinks of the user to the data related to the eye activity derived by processing the second optical signal.
  2. The system (100) according to claim 1, wherein the recorded data comprises stored data related to the eye activity of the user, stored data related to the eye activity of other users, stored data related to the health condition of the user and/or stored data related to a health condition of the other users.
  3. The system (100) according to any one of the foregoing claims, wherein the recorded data is previously stored data and/or historical data, which indicates the health condition of the user and/or a health condition of another user or other users.
  4. The system (100) according to any one of the foregoing claims, wherein the light source is an ambient light and/or an artificial light source, the artificial light source being mountable on the wearable device.
  5. The system (100) according to any one of the foregoing claims, wherein the at least one light source can further be calibrated to transmit the first optical signal to the eye and/or surrounding tissues of the user; and wherein the at least one eye sensor (110) can further be calibrated to be in alignment with the light source for the monitoring unit (107) to optimally derive data related to the eye activity of the user.
  6. The system (100) according to claim 5, wherein the at least one eye sensor can further be calibrated and is mountable on the wearable device to receive the second optical signal from the eye and/or surrounding tissues of the user; and wherein the at least one eye sensor can further be calibrated to be in alignment with the at least one light source for the monitoring unit (107) to optimally derive data related to the eye activity of the user based on the received second optical signal.
  7. The system (100) according to any one of the foregoing claims, wherein the eye sensor (110) is able to be calibrated to a personal condition of the user comprising an eye size of the user and/or a relative position of a frame or the wearable device to a position of the eyes of the user.
  8. The system (100) according to any one of the foregoing claims, the sensor unit (105) further comprising: a context sensor (115) adapted to detect a signal related to an environment of the user, wherein the context sensor (115) is arranged in the sensor unit (105) or the monitoring unit (107); wherein the monitoring unit (107) is further adapted to derive environmental data by processing the signal; wherein the storage unit (109) is further adapted to store the derived environmental data; and wherein the monitoring unit (107) is further adapted to assess the health condition of the user by comparing the recorded data with the derived data related to the eye activity of the user and the derived environmental data.
  9. The system (100) according to any one of the foregoing claims, further comprising: a user interface (135) adapted to receive an input from the user, wherein the user indicates whether the health condition corresponds to the derived eye activity data and/or the derived environmental data.
  10. The system (100) according to claim 9, wherein the user interface (135) is further adapted to indicate whether a physical and/or psychological abnormality occurred based on the comparing.
  11. The system (100) according to any one of the foregoing claims, wherein the recorded data comprises previously stored calibration data and previously stored environmental data from the user and/or other users.
  12. The system (100) according to any one of the foregoing claims, wherein the monitoring unit further comprises: an alarm unit (130) adapted to indicate to a user that a physical and/or psychological abnormality occurred based on the comparing.

Description

The present invention relates to a system for assessing a health condition of a user and a method for assessing the health condition of the user. Usually, systems for eye blink detection are applied in the case of sleep warning of drivers. Thereby, a path of light from a source to a detector may be interrupted by a blinking eye and can thus be identified. Further, reflectance based eye tracking systems can detect a viewing direction of a user by triggering an event when the user is looking in a direction of a light source or a light sensor. If the user is looking straight ahead, an incident ray from the light source is substantially reflected from the scattering sclera to give a first level outputted by the light sensor. Next, with the eye turning to look in the direction of the light source, the ray principally strikes the iris, which produces a reduction in the light level outputted by the light sensor. This may cause an electrical output of the light sensor to change significantly and to change a control device such as a relay switch to which it is connected for effecting any desired control activity. Further, a blinking detection technique may be based on a pair of a light source and a detector. Further, reflection intensities between an eyelid and an eyeball can be effectively utilized to provide a device which is not subject to accidental activation due to minor eye movement. For example, with the proper arrangement of light source and detector when the eye is open, most of an incident light will be absorbed by the eyeball, and only a small portion is reflected. When the eye is closed, a greater portion of the incident light is reflected by the eyelids as compared to the eyeball. US 9,418,617 B1 discloses a comprehensive calibration method for blink detection in head-mounted displays (HMDs) using proximity sensors: Proximity sensors detect eye activity (blinks, normal movement, winks) and capture magnitude changes in sensor readings over time (blocks 302-304)System generates statistical distribution of magnitude-change values collected during a calibration interval (block 304)System identifies clusters within the distribution representing different types of eye activity (block 306) based on frequency of occurrence and magnitude rangesSystem generates reference data mapping clusters to specific eye activity types: normal activity (lower magnitude-change cluster), blinks (higher magnitude-change cluster), winks (highest magnitude-change values) (block 308)Distribution is updated continuously or at predefined intervals (e.g., every three minutes) to adapt to changes in HMD orientation, lens shade, or userSystem stores distributions per user account and switches between distributions when different users use the deviceGaussian distributions, k-means clustering, and expectation-maximization algorithms are used to refine cluster identification and parameter estimation. It is an object of the present invention to improve a treatment of a patient suffering, for example, from a dry eye phenomenon and medically support the patient. According to a first aspect, a system for assessing a health condition of a user comprises a sensor unit, a monitoring unit and a storage unit. The sensor unit comprises at least one eye sensor. The at least one eye sensor is adapted to obtain an optical signal reflected from an eye of the user. The sensor unit can be mounted on a wearable device. The monitoring unit is connected to the sensor unit. The monitoring unit is adapted to derive data related to an eye activity of the user by processing the optical signal. The data related to the eye activity of the user is included in the optical signal. The storage unit is connected to the monitoring unit. The storage unit is adapted to store the derived data related to the eye activity of the user and recorded data. The monitoring unit is further adapted to obtain the recorded data from the storage unit. The monitoring unit is further adapted to assess the health condition of the user by comparing the recorded data with the derived data related to the eye activity of the user. The sensor unit and the monitoring unit may be connected via a radio channel (e.g. Bluetooth, ANT+, WiFi), optical channel (e.g. LiFi, infrared channel) or digital bus (e.g. USB, I2C, SPI). The advantage of the system lies in that it provides a tool for supporting a patient with information related to the patient's health condition. The sensor unit enables the patient to acquire data gathering for different users and for himself/herself. This generates a datapool making a patient's decision on a medical behaviour more precise. The term "eye activity" may be understood as an adjustment of the eye physiological state. This includes blinks, eye movements, such as rotational movement, pupil size changes, accommodation, tear film quality, tear film motion, etc. Further eye activity may be referred to by a parameter of interest. The parameter of interest may be a frequen