A thermal-imaging tool to screen for chronic wounds could enable nurses to identify these hard-to-heal sores during the first assessment at a person’s home.
Nearly half a million Australians live with chronic wounds, which greatly affect their quality of life and cost the nation’s health system around $3 billion each year.
The latest innovation by researchers at RMIT University and Bolton Clarke Research Institute builds on their team’s work published last year, which enabled the identification of chronic leg sores by the second week after the baseline assessment.
Their latest published results allow the identification of these wounds a week earlier and represents a significant leap forward, the team says.
Lead researcher Professor Dinesh Kumar said their latest clinical study, published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports, presents an AI-powered system to predict how leg ulcers will heal based on thermal images from the first assessment.
“Our new work that identifies chronic leg wounds during the first visit is a world-first achievement,” said Kumar, from RMIT’s School of Engineering.
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