WO2009108041A1

WO2009108041A1 - Providing and obtaining first aid assistance in emergency situations

Info

Publication number: WO2009108041A1
Application number: PCT/NL2008/050109
Authority: WO
Inventors: Marjon Meiboom-Hoogendoorn
Original assignee: M.H. Instructions B.V.
Priority date: 2008-02-25
Filing date: 2008-02-25
Publication date: 2009-09-03

Abstract

A first aid assistance data set comprising sound data representing sound and image data representing images is stored in a memory (14) of the mobile telephone (1) as a precautionary measure. In the event of an incident requiring first aid, a first aid assistance contact (4) is selected using a user instruction input interface (6) of the mobile telephone (1) and communication via the network (3) with the selected first aid assistance contact (4) is established. In response to termination of communication with the selected first aid assistance contact (4), and/or a signal received during communication with the selected first aid assistance contact (4), the mobile telephone (1) automatically plays the stored first aid assistance data set via a graphic display (11) and a loudspeaker (13) of the telephone, thereby providing the first aid assistance in visible and audible form. A method of providing first aid and code for use in the method according to the invention are also described.

Description

TITLE: Providing and obtaining first aid assistance in emergency situations

FIELD AND BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates to methods for obtaining and providing first aid assistance as well as to data processor readable code for use in such methods. Incidents from which a need for first aid and other rescue assistance arises occur in various forms such as animal bites, avalanche burial, breathing problems, broken bones, burns, chest pain, choking, cuts, scrapes, punctures, dental emergencies, dislocations, drowning, drug overdose, electric shock, eye injuries, fainting, frostbite, head injuries, heat exhaustion, heat stroke, hyperventilation, insect stings, neck/spine injury, nosebleeds, poison ivy, seizures, shock, splinters, sports injuries, sprains, strains, sunburn, traffic accidents and unconsciousness. Generally such incidents occur suddenly and unexpectedly and entail a very urgent need of rescue operations and first aid treatment. In many cases adequately trained persons will not be present at the site of the incident. Moreover, persons present at the site are often in distress, if not in panic.

For instance, in situations involving cardiac arrest, the importance of quick first aid assistance is of critical importance. By prompt Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) a large number of deaths could be prevented, also in cases of drowning, suffocating, electrocution and drug overdose.

From International patent application WO 98/55015, it is known to provide a wearable device for supporting medical diagnosis, the wearable device also being adapted for performing a second, day-to-day function. The device may for instance also be a watch, a key fob, mobile telephone, an electronic organizer, an electronic dictionary or a calculator.

However, rapid dissemination of such solutions for providing quick first aid assistance to persons present at the site of an incident are hampered by the need of physical distribution of such devices and by the need of being sufficiently familiar with how to operate the device to obtain the required first aid assistance. Persons in distress will often not even think of the availability of such first aid assistance. Moreover, in emergency situations requiring first aid assistance, immediately calling an emergency service (for instance by dialing 112 if in Europe or 911 if in the United States) for specialized help is of utmost importance and constitutes a need that is in competition with the need of directly providing first aid.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

It is an object of the present invention to provide a solution which allows to increase the likelihood that adequate first aid is provided quickly, in the absence of adequately trained persons at the site of the incident, even if persons present at the site of the incident are under great stress or even in panic.

According to the invention, this object is achieved by providing a method for obtaining first aid assistance according to claim 1 and by providing a method for providing first aid according to claim 6, which is specifically adapted for application in conjunction with embodiments of the method according to claim 1. The invention may also be embodied in a program code according to claim 8, for use in a method according to claim 1. Because according to the present invention, sound and image data which, if played cause the first aid assistance information to be shown in audible and visual form, have been pre-stored in the mobile telephone, in the event of an incident requiring urgent first aid, no time is lost in transferring data to the telephone for generating the audible and visible first aid assistance and the first aid assistance is played automatically if an emergency centre has been contacted, either in response to termination of the communication with a predetermined contact and/or in response to signals received during communication with the emergency centre. Particular embodiments of the invention are set forth in the dependent claims.

Further objects, features and advantages of the present invention appear from the detailed description of preferred and other embodiments which is set forth below and in which reference is made to the drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Fig. 1 is schematic representation of a mobile telephone according to the present invention;

Fig. 2 is a flow chart of a first example of a method according to the present invention; and,

Fig. 3 is a flow chart of a second example of a method according to the present invention.

MODES FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION

The invention is first described with reference to the telephone shown in Fig. 1 and the flow chart shown in Fig. 2.

Incidents from which a very urgent need of first aid and other rescue operations arises may occur in many forms. Whereas a large body of knowledge of best practices applicable to many types of situations has been gathered, it is in the very nature of incidents that they occur suddenly and unexpectedly, so that in many cases adequately trained persons will not be present at the site of the incident. Moreover, the person or persons present at the site are often under great stress, if not in downright panic. An example of a very serious incident that occurs relatively frequently and requires first aid very quickly is cardiac arrest. By prompt Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) a large number of deaths could be prevented.

First, it will be discussed how, by applying a method according to the present invention, it can be achieved that effective first aid and other rescue assistance can be made readily available to a large number of persons in a form that allows quick and effective communication of the assistance instructions in the event of an incident requiring urgent first aid or other rescue measures.

The use of mobile telephones arranged for communication via a network 3 is, at least in many parts of the world, widespread and owners of mobile telephones tend to carry their mobile telephones with them almost wherever they go. Furthermore, in the event of a serious incident, mobile telephones in the vicinity of the incident are often used to establish communication with an emergency assistance centre 4. An example of such a mobile telephone 1 is shown in Fig. 1. Parts of the internals of the mobile telephone 1 are shown schematically to the side of the housing 2, but it will be understood that also those parts will typically be located inside the housing 2. The mobile telephone according to the present example is based on a telephone of a conventional design and therefore not described in great detail. The telephone 1 is equipped with a microphone 5 and with a user instruction input interface 6 in the form of a set of keys for selecting contacts to be called, a data processor structure 7 connected to the microphone 5 and to the user interface 6 for generating output signals in accordance with signals from the microphone 5 and from the user interface 6. A transmitter 8 is connected to the data processor structure 7 for generating radio signals, to be emitted from an antenna 9, in accordance with signals received from the data processor 7. The data processor circuitry 7 is of a commercially available type and equipped with A/D and D/A converters as is well known to the skilled person and therefore not shown in more detail. A receiver 10 for receiving radio signals via the antenna 9 is also connected to the data processor structure 7. A graphic display 11 is connected to the data processor structure 7 so that data can be converted into images displayed on the display 11. For generating audible sound, an amplifier 12 is connected between the data processor structure 7 and a loudspeaker 13 for converting signals from the amplifier 12 into sound. The loudspeaker shown is a built-in loudspeaker, but may also be provided in another form, such as in the form of a loudspeaker of an earphone. The mobile telephone may also make use of an external loudspeaker, such as a loudspeaker of a car kit or vehicle sound system connected to the mobile telephone. Independently of and prior to any incident affecting the user of the telephone 1, and purely as a precautionary measure, program code in data processor readable form is stored in the memory 14 of the telephone. The memory 14 may be a system memory or a removable data carrier device. The stored program code includes a first aid assistance data set including sound data representing sound and image data representing images and is stored in a memory 14 of the mobile telephone 1. This allows providing a large number of mobile telephone users with large data sets that can be played as visual and spoken instructions on what to do in all kinds of incidents. Thereby, the data have been made available at a point in time when the duration of the data transfer is uncritical. The data may also be transferred using wired connections to the memory 14 or even by physically distributing data carriers suitable for use as a memory or as additional memory of a mobile telephone or data carriers from which the data may be transferred to a memory 14 of a mobile telephone. Thus, any delays involved in long distance data transfer at the time of an incident are avoided, while conventional, widely used telephones with multi-media playing capability can be used in the implementation and dissemination of the present invention.

The stored program code also includes mobile telephone control code for playing the data set via the loudspeaker 13 and the graphic display 11 of the telephone 1 in response to termination of communication with the selected first aid assistance contact (see the examples in Figs. 2 and 3), and/or in response to a signal received during communication with the selected first aid assistance contact (see the example shown in Fig. 3).

The program code may for instance be provided on a data carrier insertable in the mobile telephone or transferred via a wireless communication network or via a computer to which the mobile is connected, the computer running for instance a dedicated telephone management program.

As shown in Fig. 2, if at any later point in time, a user of a mobile telephone on which the first aid assistance data set has been stored, encounters a distress situation in which the need of first aid or other rescue assistance arises, the user may select a first aid assistance contact using the user instruction input interface 6 of the mobile telephone 1 (step 20). In most cases this will involve dialing 112 or any other applicable number of an emergency service. However, it may also involve selecting a telephone number previously stored in the telephone, for instance if it is already known which rescue service should be called. Also, the selection of an emergency service may be carried out by selecting an identification other than a telephone number, such as an url or an IP address.

Next, communication via the network 3 is established with the selected first aid assistance contact (step 21). According to the present example, code in the memory 14 causes the telephone 1 to be programmed to initiate a checking procedure when a telephone number has been dialed (step 22). In this checking procedure, it is checked whether the dialed telephone number is an emergency number (step 23). If the dialed telephone number is not an emergency number, then the checking procedure ends.

If the dialed telephone number is an emergency number, then the next step of the checking procedure (step 24) is to check whether the communication with the emergency service has been terminated (step 25). If the communication has not been terminated, the checking procedure passes through a brief delay loop, so that the step of checking whether the communication with the emergency service has been terminated is carried out again.

If, during the step of checking termination of the communication with the emergency service (step 24), it is found that the communication with the selected emergency service has been terminated, indicia 15-19 each associated to one of a plurality of data sets stored in the memory 14 are displayed on the display 11 (step 25). While the telephone 1 checks repeatedly whether one of the indicia has been selected (step 26), the user can select one of the indicia shown on the display 11 (step 27). Such a selection can be inputted by the user in any applicable conventional or yet to be devised manner, such as operating a touch screen or a pointer device or via voice recognition. In response to an inputted selection of one of the indicia 15-19, the data set associated to the selected one of the indicia is played (step 28) so that the required first aid or other rescue instructions are provided to the user. Preferably, the amplifier 12 is automatically at the highest possible volume.

The step of displaying a menu or other choice of first aid instructions may be omitted and only a single data set for playing first aid instructions for a specific first aid procedure, such as Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR), may be made available to be played automatically after an emergency service has been called. In such an embodiment, instructions for other, mostly less urgent, first aid may be absent or made available via selection on the user's own initiative only.

According to the present example, a loop in which the telephone 1 repeatedly checks with time intervals of for example 0.5 s whether one of the indicia 15-19 has been selected (step 26), also includes monitoring the time elapsed since the termination of the communication with the emergency service (step 29), each time after it has been found that the user has not selected one of the indicia 15-19. Each time it is found that a predetermined amount of time (for instance 5 seconds) has not yet elapsed, the program returns to another check whether one of the indicia has been selected (step 26). If it is found that the predetermined period of time has elapsed, the mobile telephone automatically plays a default one of the stored first aid assistance data sets via the graphic display 11 and the loudspeaker of the telephone 1, thereby providing the first aid assistance in visible and audible form (step 30). Which first aid assistance data set is chosen to be played by default depends on the seriousness of the possible consequences of the type of incident for which the assistance instructions are applicable, the urgency of providing first aid in the event of that type of incidents and the frequency of occurrence of the type of incidents. Generally, it will be preferred that the type of first aid procedure to which the instructions according to the default data set relates is CPR. However, in some cases it may be advantageous to select another data set as default data set to be played if no selection is made from proposed types of first aid instructions within the predetermined time interval after termination of the communication with the emergency service, for instance if one is involved in activities in which a particular type of incidents occurs relatively frequently. The first aid assistance information is preferably provided in the form of a video, since this constitutes a very effective means of instructing how to perform first aid. Since the data sets have been stored previously in the memory 14 of the mobile telephone 1, the relatively large data stream required for playing video does not entail significant delays. The video may be interactive, so that a diagnosis procedure is followed by answering questions presented as the video is played. For instance for a CPR procedure, the video may follow a procedure as is described in International patent application WO 98/55015.

The flow chart shown in Fig. 3 shows another example of a method according to the invention. The steps corresponding to the steps shown in Fig. 2 have been designated by the same reference numerals as the corresponding steps in Fig. 2. A first difference compared with the method shown in Fig. 2 is that during the communication with the selected emergency service 4 a selection signal is sent from the emergency service 4 to the telephone 1 (step 31) and received by the mobile telephone 1. The selection signal is preferably sent in response to input by an operator at the emergency service. Depending on the information received by the operator during the voice communication, the operator may select the first aid data assistance set which the operator assesses to most adequate in the situation at hand. In addition or instead of voice communication, the information provided to the operator may also include still or moving images recorded by or at least transmitted via the mobile telephone 1.

As shown in Fig. 3, after it has been established that an emergency number has been dialed, the telephone 1 reads any received selection signal (step 32) and then checks whether the connection with the emergency service has been terminated (step 24). As in the method shown in Fig. 2, the telephone plays the instructions (step 28). Which data set is selected to be played is determined by the type of signal received from the emergency service and the instructions are played after it has been found that the connection with the emergency service has been terminated. Because termination of the connection is awaited, interference with the communication between the user and the emergency service is avoided.

It may, however, be provided that the selected data set is also played if, after a period of time of a predetermined duration, the connection has not been terminated, so that the instructions are also presented if it is inadvertently omitted to terminate the communication between the user and the service centre. Another option is to provide that playing the selected or default data set is started in response to a command signal received from the emergency service 4.

Before sending a signal of which the type determines which one of the data sets is to be played, during the voice communication (step 21), it may first be determined whether the first aid assistance data sets are present in the memory 14 of the mobile telephone 1. This may for instance be carried out as a preparatory stage of the step of sending the selection signal (step 31). Next, it may be shown to the operator of the emergency service which first aid assistance data sets are present at the mobile telephone 1. This allows the operator to incorporate knowledge regarding the availability of adequate video instructions at the site of the incident in the advice provided to the caller at the site of the incident.

Other features of the telephone 1 that may automatically be checked during communication with the emergency centre are the presence of an activated geographic position determining system and, if yes, the position of the telephone. If the CPR dataset is selected, the position of the nearest defibrillator may be taken from a database and indicated to the user and/or the operator at the emergency service, preferably in terms of humanly interpretable address data, such as street and house number and main geographic direction.

While the invention has been described with reference to various embodiments, it will be clear to the skilled person that many other variants and embodiments are conceivable within the framework of the invention.

Claims

1. A method of obtaining first aid assistance information using a communication network (3) and a mobile telephone (1) for communication via the network (3), comprising: storing a first aid assistance data set comprising sound data representing sound and image data representing images stored in a memory (14) of the mobile telephone (1); subsequently, selecting a first aid assistance contact (4) using a user instruction input interface (6) of the mobile telephone (1); and establishing communication via the network (3) with the selected first aid assistance contact (4); and wherein, in response to: a) termination of communication with the selected first aid assistance contact (4), and/or b) a signal received during communication with the selected first aid assistance contact (4), the mobile telephone (1) automatically plays the stored first aid assistance data set via a graphic display (11) and a loudspeaker (13) of the telephone, thereby providing the first aid assistance in visible and audible form.

2. A method according to claim 1, wherein the first aid assistance information is provided in the form of a video presentation.

3. A method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein at least one other first aid assistance data set is stored in the memory (14), the method further comprising: the telephone, after the termination of the communication with the selected first aid assistance contact (4), displaying indicia each associated to one of the at least two data sets, and selecting one of the at least two displayed indicia, wherein the data set played is the one of the data sets associated to the selected one of the indicia.

4. A method according to claim 1, wherein, if none of the indicia has been selected within a predetermined period of time after the termination of the communication with the selected first aid assistance contact (4), the data set played is a predetermined one of the data sets.

5. A method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein at least one other first aid assistance data set is stored in the memory (14), a first one of the data sets being stored in association with data representing a signal of a first type and the at least one other data set being stored in association with data representing at least one signal of at least one other type; and wherein, if a signal of the first type has been received during the communication with the selected first aid assistance contact (4), the data set played is the first one of the data sets, and, if a signal of the at least one other type has been received during the communication with the selected first aid assistance contact (4), the data set played is the other data set or one of the other data sets.

6. A method of providing first aid assistance information to a user of a telephone network (3) and of a mobile telephone (1) communicating via the network (3), comprising: prior to a call for assistance, providing a first aid assistance data set to be stored in a memory (14) of the telephone, the data set comprising sound data representing sound and image data representing images, and providing data processor readable assistance code for causing the data set to be played in response to an assistance command signal; thereafter, in response to a call for assistance received from the mobile telephone (1), conducting voice communication via the network (3) and the mobile telephone (1); and sending an assistance command signal to the telephone causing the telephone to play the previously provided assistance data set via a graphic display (11) and a loudspeaker (13) of the telephone, thereby providing the first aid assistance to the user in visible and audible form.

7. A method according to claim 6, further comprising: during the voice communication, determining the presence of the first aid assistance data set at the mobile telephone (1); and indicating the presence of the first aid assistance data set at the mobile telephone (1) to a person conducting the voice communication with the user of the telephone.

8. A program code in data processor readable form on a data carrier (14): a first aid assistance data set comprising sound data representing sound and image data representing images; and mobile telephone (1) control code for playing the data set via a loudspeaker (13) and a graphic display (11) of the telephone in response to: a) termination of communication with the selected first aid assistance contact (4), and/or b) a signal received during communication with the selected first aid assistance contact (4).

9. A mobile telephone comprising: a microphone (5); a user instruction input interface (6) for selecting contacts to be called; a data processor structure (7) connected to the microphone (5) and to the user interface (6) for generating output signals in accordance with signals from the microphone and from the user interface (6); a transmitter (8) connected to the data processor structure (7) for generating radio signals in accordance with signals received from the data processor structure (7); a receiver (10) for receiving radio signals and connected to the data processor structure (7); a graphic display (11) connected to the data processor structure (7); an amplifier connected to the data processor structure (7); a loudspeaker (13) connected to the amplifier (12) for converting signals from the amplifier (12) into sound; and a data carrier (14) carrying a program according to claim 8 and operatively connected to the data processor (7).