AI-powered cough counting: an objective and scalable endpoint
Summary
Cough is a ubiquitous health indicator whose impact is extreme and underappreciated. As an information-rich symptom that is associated with a myriad of diseases, cough is also the ideal clinical endpoint. Yet, cough continues to be assessed mainly through limited subjective methods.
Cough is a ubiquitous health indicator whose global physical, psychological, and financial burden is extremeand underappreciated. As a disruptive, discrete, and information-rich symptom that is associated with a myriadof diseases, cough is also the ideal clinical endpoint. And yet, even in the age of mobile health, AI, and BigData, cough continues to be assessed mainly through subjective surveys and brief acoustic recordings withbulky and expensive clinical devices. Half the world population now carries smartphones that, when combinedwith AI-powered software, can be used as clinical tools for quantifying cough endpoints objectively. Scalablemobile cough monitoring has the potential to transform clinical trials by increasing their success rate, decimatingtheir costs, accelerating products to market, and improving health equity worldwide.
