Can smartphones prove to be really smart? A new study published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs throws light on smartphones that can tell when the users have consumed too much drinks, by detecting the way they walk.
This is very supportive for people in reducing alcohol consumption, as it provides real-time information about alcohol intoxication. This helps to prevent hazards due to drinking and driving or alerts a sponsor for someone in treatment. The working is similar to how the accelerometer is used to track steps by monitoring the walking movements. Here, intoxication is predicted by monitoring one’s gait.
The idea is put forward by a team of researchers. “We have powerful sensors we carry out with us wherever we go. We need to learn how to use them to best serve public health”, says lead researcher Brian Suffoletto, M.D., who was with the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine when the research was conducted and is presently with the Stanford University School of Medicine’s Department of Emergency Medicine.
He also remembers how he lost a close friend to a drinking and driving crash in college. Being an emergency physician, he had taken care of many adults injured due to acute alcohol intoxication. This inspired him to dedicate 10 years to testing digital interventions to prevent deaths and injury related to excessive alcohol consumption.
The study was performed on 22 adults aged 21 to 43. Volunteers were selected based on health conditions and were given instructions prior to the study. They received a mixed drink with enough vodka to produce a breath alcohol concentration of 0.20 percent. They had an hour to finish the alcohol. This was followed by an hourly breath alcohol concentration analysis for seven hours and participants performed a walking task. The researchers attached a smartphone on each participant’s lower back with the help of an elastic belt. The participants walked a straight line for 10 steps, turned around and walked back 10 steps.
The smartphones measured acceleration and mediolateral (side to side), vertical (up and down) and anteroposterior (forward and backward) movements. The team succeeded almost 90 percent of the time in identifying when participants’ breath alcohol concentration exceeded 0.08 percent, the legal limit for driving in the United States.
Suffoletto suggests that the lab study showed how phones could be useful to identify ‘signatures’ of functional impairments related to alcohol. The research group plans to figure out how the result would vary when people carry their phone in their hands, front pockets or side pockets.
He envisions that in the future if people drink at risky levels, they get an alert at the first sign of impairment and are sent strategies to help them stop drinking and protect them from high-risk events such as driving, interpersonal violence and unprotected sexual encounters. The researchers also plan to identify the best communicational and behavioural strategies to influence and aid individuals during the risk of intoxication.
Reference : Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.
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