AI-powered app offers personalized allergy forecasts
A medical technology company is leveraging artificial intelligence to help people determine if they suffer from allergies before having an attack.
SoundHealth launched an app that has the capability of personalizing allergy forecasts by analyzing a person's facial anatomy in conjunction with their surrounding environment.
SONUCast – a feature in SoundHealth's SONU app – utilizes the company's patented AI algorithms to generate a real-time, personalized forecast of allergy symptoms based on a person's location.
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To do this, the company's technology analyzes air quality data, a person's nasal anatomy and the physics of particle aerodynamics to warn the user of an impending allergy attack.
It marks the first time "users can know their allergy to air quality based on their facial structure," Paramesh Gopi, founder of SoundHealth, told FOX Business.
Allergic rhinitis, an allergic reaction that causes sneezing, congestion and sore throat, affects up to 60 million people annually in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Symptoms may vary depending upon the season. But Gopi warned that "untreated rhinitis invariably causes asthma and lung problems."
When traveling, for instance, Gopi explained that someone may be able to search for the pollen count at a certain location before arriving, but it won't explain how one's body is going to react once they are there.
"Personalization matters because most people want to know what particles they are allergic to and how to avoid breathing them in," he said, adding that "air-based allergy tests in a clinic are costly, require a lot of time for the patient, and are only marginally accurate. They do not take into account the patient’s airway geometry."
On Tuesday, the app launched on the App Store, making the tool available to the public for the first time.
The app was launched in July, but it was only for customers who bought the company's AI-enabled, wearable medical device, the SONU band.
The FDA-approved wearable device is dedicated to the treatment of moderate to severe nasal congestion. It works by using acoustic vibrational energy to provide personalized relief for nasal congestion. This vibration, according to the company, has been "shown to decrease symptoms of nasal congestion."
To use the device, the company's app also scans a user's face and creates a digital map of their sinuses and calculates their optimal resonant frequencies.
Following the initial scan, the user puts the SONU band around their head. Once it's turned on, the SONU band will deliver "frequencies tailored to the patient based on the app's calculations," the company said.