Washington: Scientists have developed a new artificial intelligence (AI) system to monitor people for cardiac arrest while they are asleep without touching them. People experiencing cardiac arrest will suddenly become unresponsive and either stop breathing or gasp for air, a sign known as agonal breathing, said rese-archers at the University of Washington (UW) in the US. A new skill for a smart speaker -- like Google Home and Amazon Alexa -- or smartphone lets the device detect the gasping sound of agonal breathing and call for help. Immediate Cardiop-ulmonary resuscitation (CPR) can double or triple someone's chance of survival, but that requires a bystander to be present. CPR is an emergency procedure that combines chest compressions often with artificial ventilation in an effort to manually preserve intact brain function. Recent research suggests that one of the most common locations for an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is in a patient's bedroom, where no one is likely around or awake to respond and provide care.

New artificial intelligence technology is helping dispatchers figure out if a patient is experiencing sudden cardiac arrest. Fast Company reported that Corti, an AI assistant, will be on the line with Copenhagen dispatchers to analyze the caller's words and background clues in order to determine if the caller is describing a patient suffering from cardiac arrest and alert the dispatcher in real time. "If you and I have a problem, we end up Googling or asking people," Andreas Cleve, CEO of the company that created the technology, said. "These people are handling more or less the worst days of our lives but they have no tools to do it." Although Copenhagen dispatchers can recognize cardiac arrest over the phone 73 percent of the time, the program has proven to have a 95 percent success rate, and also "trains itself" to analyze factors in the background such as yelling or sirens.