Audiopulse: Democratizing the Newborn Hearing Screening in Brazil

摘要

It is estimated that globally 588 million people have a hearing loss. It is estimated that 5.7 million of Brazilians have some degree of hearing loss. The situation for children is worse, 6% have hearing loss by age 4, and 6 in 1000 have hearing loss from birth. In Brazil, there is a federal law (number 2794/01) that obligates every baby to have the hearing test done during the first week of birth. Although a federal law exists, not all government hospitals and clinics provide the hearing test, due the high cost of equipment's, and the poor populations cannot afford the test. A child who suffers from hearing loss faces many challenges throughout life, including: delayed speech and language development, learning disabilities, social problems and stigmas. Later in life, they struggle with staying in school and unemployment due to their disabilities. Even though the World Health Organization recommends universal neonatal screening, many babies miss their chance to be screened due to unavailability, high costs, or long wait times. Current systems are so inflexible and expensive that can't easily be scaled to rural clinics. The specific aim of this work is to create a battery of hearing screening tests that can be performed efficiently through a cell phone. The software uses Sana technology and data is securely transmitted wirelessly to a centralized medical database for validation by a trained audiologist and storage in a medical record database. Also a new screening based on fractal analysis and intelligent systems of the recorded ear sound will also be developed and investigated. If successful, this new diagnostic tool will be merged into the mobile hearing screening software, simplifying the objective screening by decreasing the requirements in calibration and computer resources. Sana AudioPulse has developed a mobile telemedicine platform, using cellphones interfacing with specialized hardware to screen hearing impairment in newborns with a suite of hearing screening tests. This mobile technology allows widespread deployment of hearing screenings across abroad span of rural and urban communities. Sana AudioPulse provides a scalable, low-cost solution.