Hospital’s app gives throat op patients a new voice

HOSPITAL patients hooked up to breathing tubes and unable to talk may soon be able to communicate using a phone app that reads lips.

The technology is being trialled at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust on patients who have had a tracheostomy – where a tube is inserted into the windpipe and a machine helps them to breathe.

A tracheostomy is performed on about one in six people admitted to NHS intensive care wards.

Many of these patients are suffering with respiratory diseases, such as Covid, which make breathing difficult, as well as other serious conditions, including certain cancers or traumatic head injuries.

Patients can spend anything from a few days to months connected to the tube. But while it is often a lifesaving intervention, patients cannot use their vocal cords so struggle to communicate.

According to Dr Shondipon Laha, an intensive care consultant who came up with the idea for the app and is leading the trial, a tracheostomy can be isolating for patients and affect their care.

He said: ‘Patients may need the toilet, be in pain or have a particular concern they want to raise, but they aren’t able to communicate this to doctors or

‘They may be in pain but unable to communicate’

relatives who come to visit, which can be hugely frustrating.’

The cutting-edge technology hopes to remedy this.

To use the app, patients aim the camera on their smartphone at their face. Sophisticated software reads their lips as they mouth words, which are then displayed on the phone’s screen where it can be read by doctors and visitors.

The app, designed by Northern Ireland-based software company Liopa, currently recognises 40 phrases, such as ‘I need the toilet’, ‘I want to speak to my family’ or ‘I feel sad’.

It hopes to expand the number of phrases the app understands and also make it able to speak the patient’s words.

Dr Laha first had the idea for the app during the 2018 football World Cup.

He said: ‘I was on the ward and there was a patient with a tracheostomy who shoved me really hard in the back. He was trying to watch a penalty shootout and I was in the way.

‘I realised then that it would be useful to have something that could help these patients talk.’

Trials carried out on 12 patients at the hospital in 2019 showed it was effective and popular.

Dr Laha added: ‘If this goes well we could extend it to other NHS trusts across the country.’