We have written in the past about the ZOE® Fluid Status Monitor and how it is being used in the home with CHF patients. (See HCTR 6/4/14: "Stabilizing Health and Reducing Hospitalizations via Noninvasive Zo Measurement") Now we have learned that ZOE has sunk, literally.
Dr. Marc Ó Gríofa, an Irish-trained Las Vegas physician, is a former triage doctor for the shuttle program at the Kennedy Space Center. Currently, he works with the "NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations, cleverly referred to as NEEMO. He spent eight days in July nearly 20 meters below the surface of the ocean inside NASA's Aquarius Undersea Reef Base off the coast of Florida. The base is used to simulate conditions astronauts might encounter during long space missions or on the surface of other planets. While there, he monitored the entire NASA crew frequently with ZOE.
"The ZOE Fluid Monitor provides the capability of a portable, repeatable, objective indicator of fluid status that can be used in any conventional or unconventional clinical environment for the monitoring and management of any patient with fluid management problems," Ó Gríofa told us. "Assuring accurate technology utilization, even when the home environment transitions to 90 feet underwater, is an expected clinical commitment to best care."
ZOE uses two electrodes on the thorax, noninvasively assessing Zo (ohms) by passing a 2 milliamp current between the electrodes for thirty seconds. Within three to five minutes, it reports the amount of vascular fluid stability and whether it is on the increase or decrease.
One of the key reasons O Griofa is on the NEEMO mission is to see how Zoey performs. He will oversee the collection of multiple samples from each crew member to evaluate the impact of the NEEMO mission on telomere length. This research will be used to study Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease and genetic disorders like Duchenne’s Muscular Dystrophy.
The ZOE® Fluid Status Monitor was developed by Noninvasive Medical Technologies Inc.
nmtinc.org
©2016 by Rowan Consulting Associates, Inc., Colorado Springs, CO. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared in Tim Rowan's Home Care Technology Report. homecaretechreport.com One copy may be printed for personal use; further reproduction by permission only. editor@homecaretechreport.com