GPS-enabled Albuterol Inhaler Helps Patients Localize Their Asthma Triggers

This article originally appeared at iMedicalApps.com, part of the HCPLive network.

Are there patterns to the usage of albuterol inhalers that would help patients identify their triggers? It is reasonable to expect that an individual over time would become familiar with the times of day or locations that are more likely to trigger their asthma. But, what if a single neighborhood or a particular event caused a widespread flare up of asthma — how do we track what populations of patients are experiencing in real time?

Asthmapolis is a company and research project that aims to answer that question for asthma using a compact wireless device that records time and location on patients’ use of their albuterol inhalers. The service is voluntary, anonymized and opt-in. In a newspaper article, the study leader David Van Sickle, PhD, remarked that in a pilot study [Columbia Daily Tribune].

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