Cell Phone to Become Latest First Aid Tool?

Technology, particularly the recent slew of mobile devices like iPhones and iPads, are designed for doing many things beyond their basic capabilities. Essentially, these devices, as long as they’re equipped with an application, are nearly limitless in possibilities. From basic internet surfing to recording and making music, these portable computers or cell phones are resourceful in many instances. One instance discovered recently was a cell phone’s use in first aid. This isn’t simply looking up a diagnosis through Web, MD, however. Beyond checking symptoms, a cell phone was found by a team of researchers at University of California, Berkeley, to be used like a microscope.

This article details how the researchers came up with this device through students. Called a CellScope, the device is simply a standard microscope attached to a cell phone and the user, when treating first aid issues, can take a picture of the injury with the phone’s camera function that uses the microscope. What results is a detailed image of a wound or other injury that can be sent to a lab and diagnosed. As parts of the United States and the rest of the world don’t always have access to health care, the CellScope is a tool to try to get medical help when a hospital or care center isn’t within commuting distance.

The researchers at University of California, Berkeley, are planning to apply this first aid device to places in Uganda, as mentioned in the article. Uganda, like many other rural parts of the world, has a shortage of accessible healthcare and, as the example in the article explains, treatable diseases like tuberculosis often means traveling a long distance and waiting nearly a day for any medical attention. With a system in place to send visual samples to a lab facility or a doctor, residents of towns in Uganda won’t need to travel a long distance for basic care.