IONTOPH

ORESIS

WIRELESS APPLICATI

ON

A M I RA H A

H M A D DA G H A C H E 1

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G R A D U A T I O N P R O J E C T I I S P R I N G 2 0 1 6I N S T R U C T O R :

D R . M O H A M M E D A L A K H R A S

OVERVIEW• INTRODUCTION

• Personal Story – Root• What is Iontophoresis?

• Background• How it Works• How it’s beneficial

• Complication• Proposed Solution

• Interface• Application• How it Works

INTRODUCTION

• Approximately 3% of the population * (USA) suffers from an abnormal increase in body sweating. (International Hyperhidrosis Society, 2015) This condition is often called Hyperhidrosis.

• It occurs in unusual situations like cooler weather without a clear trigger. The condition can be highly distressing and has significant effects on the everyday lives of people who suffer from it.

• While many researchers argue that the condition may be connected with a significant quality of life from a mental, emotional, and social point of view, however, the condition is usually treatable.

IONTOPHORESIS?

WHAT IS

• Since the 1940’s, Iontophoresis has been used to treat Hyperhidrosis (specifically on the palms and feet)

• How it Works• Iontophoresis is a medical device used to

pass a mild electrical current through water -while normally using shallow pans sufficiently big enough for hands or feet- and through the skins surface.

• The patients places his/her palms or feet on the trays submerged in ionized water while a technician carefully and slowly increases the electrical current until the patient feels a light tingling sensation.

[INSERT VIDEO]

• Usually the current passes through the plates for about 5 to 10 minutes with regular current flow then the technician switches the current in reverse for another 5 to 10 minutes.

• The therapy lasts about 30 to 40 minutes per session and requires several sessions.

• The benefits of Iontophoresis are thought to be long term and have no serious side effects other than excessive dryness, skin irritation and blistering at times.

• Its treatments have helped patients with Palmoplantar (on the palms and feet) decrease sweating dramatically. While the treatment doesn’t work on all patients, however one study found that it helped almost 91% of patients, in another study it claims it helped reduce the sweating for almost 81%.(International Hyperhidrosis Society, 2015)

• Iontophoresis has a variety of uses in medicine including diagnostic uses such as testing the health of the endothelium of the skin and is also very useful in some laboratory experiments, specifically in neuropharmacology.•Iontophoresis units are so available for home use.

COMPLICATION

• While Iontophoresis has been quite successful and there has been a main issue that dermatologists -and people using it- face. Increasing and decreasing current and more specifically switching it to reverse manually is a major issue. (Just like most electric current devices.) Any wrong turn or slight drift in hand motion could generate an undesired current outcome and consequently cause extreme discomfort for the patient and in some cases even causes them a slight electric shock.

SOLUTION

• I’m proposing to build an application where the technician can safely increase the current without any room for errors.

• In modern day, technicians and electricians prefer using specialized programmed software that provides them a way to request précised outcome to obtain highly accurate results.

•The application would provide dermatologists (and/or users of Iontophoresis) with the same technology that would enable them to use the machine wirelessly instead of manually and thus solve the main obstacle they face with the machine.

First Draft:• Using NetBeans IDE 8.1

Second Draft:• Using Android Studio

•Furthermore, the application would allow the users to set the time for each session, reset the timer again, also an emergency stop button, and for each patient a separate file where all his/ her sessions are recorded.

Virtual Machine being used. Nox

REFERENCES

o Pollack S. Electrosurgery. In: Bolognia JL, Jorizzo JL, Schaffer JV, eds. Dermatology. 3rd ed. Philadelphia, PA: Elsevier Saunders; 2012:chap 140.

o International Hyperhidrosis Society (2015). Defining Hyperhidrosis. Retrieved (October 28, 2015) from: http://www.sweathelp.org/en/home/defining-hyperhidrosis.html

o International Hyperhidrosis Society (2015). Iontophoresis. Retrieved (October 28, 2015) from: http://www.sweathelp.org/en/hyperhidrosis-treatments/iontophoresis.html

o SLUCare (2013, May 15). Iontophoresis. Retrieved (October 31, 2015) from: http://slu.adam.com/content.aspx?productId=117&isArticleLink=false&pid=1&gid=007293