Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a long-term lung condition and a major cause of illness and death. People with COPD are more likely to develop chest infections, which can lead to acute exacerbations of COPD (AECOPD). These often need emergency treatment or hospital care as symptoms can worsen quickly. Finding simpler ways to spot when exacerbations are starting and to monitor recovery could help people get treatment earlier and avoid emergency hospital stays.
Coughing is known to change during AECOPD. People usually cough more during an exacerbation, with less coughing as they recover. Previous studies have relied on people reporting their own coughs or using specialist cough-counting devices, limiting how widely these tools can be used.
In this edition of Tap into Research, we look at a study that tested whether smartphones could measure cough frequency in people admitted to hospital with AECOPD.
A smartphone app was installed to automatically detect cough counts from audio recordings. The smartphone was placed around 1-2 metres from a patient’s bed during their hospital stay. Most patients stayed in single rooms to reduce background noise. The app recorded sound continuously using the phone’s built-in microphone and sent cough counts to a secure server in near real-time.
Twenty-three patients took part, and data from 18 patients were included in the final analysis. Five patients continued cough monitoring after leaving hospital.
Cough frequency was highest at the start of the exacerbation (around 15 coughs per hour) and dropped to below 5 coughs per hour as people recovered. People varied in how often they coughed and how quickly their cough improved.
There were relationships between the number of coughs recorded by the app and clinical and laboratory measurements. Higher cough counts were linked with higher body temperature and lower oxygen saturation. These patterns suggest that cough frequency reflects how unwell someone is during AECOPD and how they are recovering.
While this study included a small number of people in hospital, it showed that using smartphones to count coughs was feasible in people with COPD with AECOPD. This could help track and assess how well someone is recovering.
Future studies could explore whether smartphone-based cough monitoring can help predict the early stages of an exacerbation, giving people an early warning before symptoms get worse.
Read the paper: Smartphone-enabled cough detection in severely exacerbated COPD: An exploratory pilot study
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