X-Message-Number: 5578
Date: 13 Jan 96 17:36:34 EST
From: Mike Darwin <>
Subject: emergency alerts

Charles,

By all means post to Cryonet.  I cross posted to CCF from the start because 
I thought CCF might have people willing to help.  Further, BPI is acutely 
interested in developing and marketing this product -- and patent 
protecting specific embodiments of it for commercial purposes; I think it 
has much wider application than cryonics.  If anyone on Cryonet or CCF has 
interest in working with BPI (and the ABILITY) on this, by all means 
contact me; there may even be some money available.

Your suggestions are good ones, and some were thought of already by others 
who tried to work up such a system.  But you seem to be missing the point 
that the ENGINEERING and PRODUCTION of a workable, marketable unit such as 
you describe is a nightmare on a small scale.  You have to take a pulse 
detection watch, tap into the output to the display, get that signal to a 
processor in a meaningful form, set up a processor to send out bursts of 
transmissions, and so on.  THEN you have to pachage the whole things so it 
is rugged and reasonably water resistant (I can't tell you howe many times 
I've showered with my Casio watch on; and I'm not 85 years old yet!).  This 
is a damn complex thing to do on a bread board, it is VERY difficult to do 
with a small, rugged device which can be simply worn as an end-user 
product.   This thing has to be at least as durable as a Casio or Timex 
watch or a pager with waterproofing enough to get through a shower or rain 
storm..

I believe there are transmitting watches for pulse available now, and they 
might be interfaced to a belt worn unit consisting of a radio transmitter 
and power supply, or even a modified cell phone added in that would turn on 
and dial out if the person went down anywhere. All of these are great 
ideas.  But they will be VERY difficult to implement as a PRODUCT that can 
be practially used and sold to the existing market, particularly at an 
affordable rate.

Consider: THREE years ago we decided to set up a data acquisition and 
control system.  Alcor also decided to set up temp data acquisition and 
control.  SIMPLE problems as such problems go.  Alcor got their system up, 
but with enormous effort and it still requires oversight.  We got our 
system up too, but we had an advantage of starting later and using 
EXCELLENT commercially available processs control software.  It has taken 
MONTHS of effort to make even the acquisition and temperature control part 
work.  This is ROUTINE.  The companies all come breezing in and tell you 
how easy it will be; but it is anything BUT easy and requires very smart 
people to do.  

As to modifying the AVID chip, I don't think so.  I know Hannis Stoddard, 
DVM its "developer" and AVID's headquarters are in Norco about 10 minutes 
from my home (and, if I choose the right route, actually on my way into 
work at 21st).  Prototyping the chip was astronomically expensive and 
setting up the production capability to knock them out in quantity at an 
affordable cost was a major barrier for them (they required a lot of high 
risk capital).  These things are encased in a glass capsule (about 1-2 mm 
wide by maybe 3-4 mm long) and then specially coated to reduce migration 
and be more biocompatible.  Major tooling was required to do this! You are 
talking about major increase in complexity, size and basic design 
parameters. Argh!  Would you like me to send you an AVID chip too look at?

It is only a guess, but I would bet that to retool and build a unit that 
would work for humans as you suggest would cost a minimum of $million up 
front.  It would have to be implanted out of country because it would never 
be affordable to run it through FDA.  It would also mean no MRI imagining 
for the person it is implanted in.

Now, read over your post and see how the complexity of what you are 
proposing has proliferated.  They are all great ideas, but how long do we 
have to wait?  I have two guys in their 80's, or more the point CC DOES, 
who could fall over any day and be dead for hours to a day or two in SUNNY 
Southern California before they are found.  One fellow does not have air 
conditioning and lives in a second story apartment!

It could be that hybrid system of motion detectors and a cell phone linked 
pulse absence triggered affair would work in most cases. A very simple 
solution would be to have a BASIC motion detector hooked to a relay/cell 
phone or dialer transmitter (of the kind marketed for elderly or infirm 
people now, that is on the patient.  If you don't move for X minutes the 
thing goes off, or maybe a pulse detector front-end could be grafted onto 
the system and size held down.  A larger device might, for instance, be 
tolerated if worn on the ankle, and I KNOW that commercial units for 
persons under house arrest are available (minus pulse detection or motion 
detection capability) for aboyt $2000 for each ankle worn unit.

Finally, yet again, THE BEST IS EVER THE ENEMY OF THE GOOD.  Right now I 
have a box sitting at the lab which contains 6 motion detectors, a series 
of time delay relays, a keypad, and an alarm dialer assembly.  In short, 
all you need to put a prototype SIMPLE system in place, minus the mattress 
pad detector.  Frankly even the mattress pad detector is probably 
unnecessary if the detector is mounted directly over the bed.

As to the objection Perry raised about fans: forget it: these things are 
infared detectors.  They only detect WARM things moving.  We have an alarm 
system at home and the fan never sets it off.  An exception might be an 
oscillating fan with a hot motor mounted high.  Nor do our small dogs set 
it off who are too low to the floor to be in the detector sensing area 
which is set at human height to create a pet "alley".  However, as I said 
previously, cats, iguanas(?) and ferrets are another matter altogether.

Finally, regardless of WHAT kind of patient worn system or "base station" 
transmitter- receiver is used in the final product, you still need: a) time 
delay relays, b) local cueing alarms, c) a dialer to call out.  The front 
end, be it motion detectors, or other more complex systems such as you 
suggest, can come on line and be replaced as necessary.  In the meantime, 
my motion detectors and alarm equipment sit in a box and several people are 
at high risk of lying around dead for awhile in ALL cryonics groups.

What do you think is the prudent course of action?


Mike Darwin


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