With the help of a smartphone, you can determine the level of oxygen saturation of the blood and its reduction up to 70%. This conclusion was reached by scientists from the University of California at San Diego.
During the coronavirus pandemic, the demand for pulse oximeters increased dramatically. Sometimes a person with a detected coronavirus does not have severe symptoms, and he continues treatment at home. But if the pulse oximeter shows that the level of saturation or oxygen saturation of the blood falls below 95%, this is a reason to urgently call an ambulance, because this threatens with severe pulmonary complications. Therefore, all citizens were advised to purchase these simple devices worn on a finger, and in Moscow they were also distributed free of charge in kits for pensioners who had been vaccinated.
In an experimental study by scientists from California, it was shown that smartphones have the ability to determine the level of oxygen saturation of the blood up to 70%. This is the smallest value that pulse oximeters can record. It is necessary to place a finger on the camera and the flash of a smartphone, which use a deep learning algorithm in diagnostics, deciphering oxygen indicators. While these applications are not yet freely available, they will appear in the future.
When the researchers injected a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen to the participants of the experiment to artificially reduce the oxygen levels in the blood, the smartphone absolutely correctly detected this 80% of the time. When creating a number of similar applications, volunteers were asked to hold their breath for a long time to artificially reduce the level of oxygen in the blood, which made them uncomfortable. However, the test, where the same mixture of nitrogen and oxygen was used, did not require people not to breathe for a whole minute, and allowed them to more effectively assess the effectiveness of such pulse oximeters.
