Smart electronic dose counter for pressurized metered dose inhaler

According to Global Asthma Report 2014, asthma may affect as many as 334 million people today and prevalence. While symptoms and severity vary from person to person, asthma can be deadly in some circumstances. Asthma can be controlled by medicine. However, one of the hardest parts of controlling asthma is making sure patients are getting the right does of medicine through their inhaler based on doctor´s instructions. However, the patients, especially children, frequently miss doses or even forget to use it. In this study, our proposed electronic dose counter directly attached to pressurized metered dose inhaler without modification original inhaler structure, that is used to record the times and timestamps of doses actuated by patients. The dose information automatically uploads and displays in an inhaler APP ran on a smartphone. Moreover, the inhaler APP also reminds the patients when they forget to use it in right time. Overall cost of the electronics dose counter is ~$5. Our low-cost smart inhaler counter with inhaler APP could be lowered healthcare cost and saved lives.