IIT Mandi researchers develop a simple and portable device to detect ischemic stroke

This low-cost diagnostic technique will help in precisely detecting ischemic stroke and can be used in rural, poor and remote areas for early diagnosis.

Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology Mandi, in collaboration with PGMIER Chandigarh, have proposed and developed a simple, portable and cost-effective device to detect and diagnose stroke caused by impaired blood flow to the brain.

A research paper describing the device and its operation was recently published in IEEE Sensors Journal. The paper was co-authored by Dr Shubhajit Roy Chowdhury, Associate Professor, School of Computing and Electrical Engineering, IIT Mandi, and his student Dalchand Ahirwar along with Dr Dheeraj Khurana, Post Graduate Institute for Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh.

Ischemic stroke caused by insufficient or interrupted blood supply to part of the brain affects one of every 500 Indians every year.

Surveys have shown that around 10 percent to 15 percent of all strokes affect people below 40 years of age. The efficient management and treatment of stroke depends upon early identification and diagnosis.

Currently, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computer tomography (CT) techniques are considered the gold standard for ischemic stroke detection. While these are indeed reliable methods, they require considerable infrastructure and high cost, and are inaccessible to many communities in India there is only one MRI service for every 1 million people in the country.

While explaining the research, Dr Shubhajit Roy Chowdhury, Associate Professor, IIT Mandi, said,

“We are working towards finding a low-cost diagnostic technique to precisely detect ischemic stroke at the point of care so that such tests can be used in rural, poor and remote areas".