GPS, Already Used to Find Nearest Gas Station and Movie Theater, May Help Pin Point Asthma Triggers

If you are among the roughly 20 million Americans who have asthma, locating the places where your breathing complications are triggered may someday be as easy as using a global positioning system (GPS) in your car to find your way around town.

David Van Sickle, an epidemiologist from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is experimenting with a GPS device attached to asthma inhalers to allow users to document where they are when asthma strikes. By noting exactly where an asthma sufferer is at the time of an attack, patients and physicians may better identify the reason for the asthma and treat the condition accordingly.

Van Sickle said advancements in GPS technology, which made the devices much smaller and lighter than the first models, spurred his research. He jokes that early versions of GPS transmitters were so big and unwieldy that “lugging this inhaler around would cause people to have asthma attacks.”

“It looked like a washing machine tied on to the inhale,” Van Sickle said in an interview with Discovery News.

The GPS device used for his experiment is lightweight and about the size of a nine-volt battery, he said.

Van Sickle is now putting together a pilot program for as many as 31 volunteers. So far, he has about 19 takers. He said he’d eventually like to have thousands of asthmatics carrying the GPS-enabled inhalers so he can document and map conditions and locations that trigger breathing problems across the United States.

Asthma inhalers are just the latest devices to go high-tech with GPS technology. Global positioning is also being used to help locate Alzheimer’s patients or young children who wander off from home. It’s encouraging to see American ingenuity at work developing new ways to reduce asthma and other common problems.

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