BloodVitals SPO2: Best Practices for Daily Monitoring

CarenMerri

First, pause and take a deep breath. When we breathe in, our lungs fill with oxygen, which is distributed to our purple blood cells for transportation throughout our our bodies. Our bodies need loads of oxygen to perform, and healthy individuals have at least 95% oxygen saturation all the time. Conditions like asthma or COVID-19 make it more durable for bodies to absorb oxygen from the lungs. This results in oxygen saturation percentages that drop to 90% or beneath, a sign that medical attention is required. In a clinic, docs monitor oxygen saturation using pulse oximeters - these clips you place over your fingertip or ear. But monitoring oxygen saturation at home multiple instances a day might help patients keep an eye on COVID signs, for instance. In a proof-of-principle examine, University of Washington and University of California San Diego researchers have proven that smartphones are capable of detecting blood oxygen saturation ranges down to 70%. This is the bottom value that pulse oximeters should be able to measure, as really helpful by the U.S.