Ear infections are the second most common diseases affecting American children. According to health experts, almost three out of four kids in the country experience ear infection before they turn three years.
Ear infections often lead to concern and tension in parents as they often find it difficult to manage and console their child affected with the pain. Bringing relief to those parents scientists have developed an iPhone attachment that can help parents in diagnosing the ear infection, by simply sitting at home.
The new device Remotoscope, a clip-on attachment and software app, is expected to help parents in avoiding the frequent rush to the doctor.The device uses iphone's camera and flash for light source and records data to the phone with the help of a custom software app.
Apart from that, it can lead to a better diagnosis and treatment of ear infections. By installing Remotoscope in their iPhone parents can either take a photo or video of their child's eardrum. The images or video can be sent digitally to the physician. Doctors will be able to diagnose the infection by examining the images or video.
"Ultimately we think parents could receive a diagnosis at home and forgo the late-night trips to the emergency room," Dr. Wilbur Lam, a physician at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta and an assistant professor of pediatrics at Emory School of Medicine, said in a news release. "It's known that kids who get ear infections early in life are at risk for recurrent ear infections. It can be a very big deal and really affect their families' quality of life."
The device is expected to put an end to the difficulties physicians often face to identify the type of ear infection - virus or bacteria - and the tendencies to prescribe antibiotics unnecessarily.
"As pediatricians will likely only see the child once, they often err on the side of giving antibiotics for viral infections rather than risk not giving antibiotics for a bacterial infection, which can lead to complications," Dr. Lam said. "So, we are currently over-treating ear infections with antibiotics and consequently causing antibiotic resistance."
According to the researchers, getting a series of images of the child's ear help doctors to wait and prescribe the antibiotics only for the most unavoidable cases.
A clinical trial of the device, to check its effectiveness and accuracy is going on. As part of their experiments, researchers are also taking opinion from parents.
"A lot of parents said they would want to use it, which surprised me because I think it could be scary to look in some one's ear and because I think parents would be afraid they could hurt their child," Kathryn Rappaport, a medical student who is part of the research team, said. "Parents are enthusiastic and ask me where they can get it, but we're not there yet."
Investigators expect to publish their findings by the end of this year.
