Support Dr Simons with your vote
Respiratory physician Sami Simons recently asked people both with and without lung disease to make their voices heard—literally. He is now once again asking for your help with his research into detecting COPD exacerbations at an early stage.
With support from Longfonds, Dr Sami Simons is developing a smart app that can detect from the voices of people with COPD whether an exacerbation may be on the way. And the project is already proving successful: thanks to all the participants, the researchers now have the largest speech dataset of Dutch people with COPD.
“The initial results show that we can detect a COPD exacerbation in 95% of cases—simply by listening to the voice.”
To make the analysis even more reliable, the researchers are now also looking for voice recordings from people aged 60 to 85 who do not have lung disease. Recordings from people with COPD, asthma or another lung condition are still very welcome too, including from those experiencing an exacerbation while making the recording.
Do you fit one of these profiles and would you like to take part?
Visit www.speaktocopd.com on your mobile phone. You will find the start button at the bottom of the page. First answer a few short, anonymous questions, then say “Aaa” into your phone’s microphone.
Taking part only takes a few minutes. Your voice could help detect COPD exacerbations earlier. That matters because the sooner an exacerbation is recognised, the sooner treatment can begin. In some cases, it may even be possible to prevent the exacerbation altogether. For people with COPD, that could make a world of difference.