Do Your Own Medical Checkups With Elfi-Tech’s Monitoring Sensor

You’re not feeling great but are not sure if it’s just a passing cold or a more serious virus or bacteria. In the first case going to the doctor’s is pointless and can waste precious time and energy.

Thanks to increasing advances in modern technology, understanding what your symptoms are and even completing a full health checkup no longer requires a trip to the clinic.

One of the many companies rushing to get in on the do-it-yourself medicine market is the Israeli-based company Elfi-Tech that allows you to monitor your physiological parameters comfortably and non-invasively at any time with the help of a sensor smaller than a dime.

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The Elfi mDLS sensor allows one to keep track of their physiological parameters by measuring various cardiovascular parameters, such as heart rate, blood flow, blood coagulability and heart contractility. For the private consumer and health-conscious individual, the sensor can be used to keep track of fitness levels by monitoring caloric consumption and cardiac output. In the medical field, the sensor can be used for the analysis, diagnosis and detection of various conditions, as well as patient monitoring.

Bringing medical care to your home

Elfi-Tech was created with the vision of bringing home-monitoring to the forefront. Surprisingly, this transition was not particularly costly to make. The sensor is non-obtrusive, has low power usage and remains inexpensive. “Throughout the development process we always focused on the end user experience and thought how best to integrate the mDLS sensor into existing devices such as the wrist watch and smartphone,” says Dr. Louis Shenkman, medical director at Elfi-Tech.

“One of the most attractive aspects of the Elfi mDLS sensor is its multi-functionality. It can be used in both medical and non-medical contexts, all with the same precision and accuracy,” Erez Herman, project coordinator and business development lead at Elfi-Tech, tells NoCamels. One of the company’s main targets is transferring the use of their sensor into sectors for the private consumer, particularly into the field of wellness and fitness.

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One-of-a-kind

The Elfi mDLS sensor uses Dynamic Light Scattering technology (DLS). DLS is normally used in nanotechnology to measure the size of small particles. The sensor was miniaturized in order to be used for the measurement of physiological parameters. The device uses a laser source which is reflected by red cells present in the skin, whose movement is affected by the heartbeat. By being applied to the skin, the sensor can measure various cardiovascular parameters.

Smaller than a dime

“Our sensor can be used to determine the coagulation status of blood. This is something that no other instrument on the market has the capacity to do non-invasively,” claims Shenkman.

Elfi-Tech was founded by physicist Dr. Ilya Fine and was developed with his team of expert mathematicians, physicists, engineers and medical professionals. The company was funded by private investors and received a grant from the Office of the Chief Scientist in Israel. Fine previously co-founded two successful medical startups, Cybro Medical and OrSense.

Adding new dimensions to their technology

Elfi-Tech was selected as one of the 12 finalists for the $2.23 Million Nokia Sensing XChallenge, a global competition to accelerate the development of home-monitoring sensing technologies. The final judging and awards ceremony will take place at the Health 2.0 Fall Conference in Silicon Valley on October 2nd.

Elfi-Tech hopes to integrate the contest’s vision into their future projects, making their products more accessible. Elfi-Tech intends to work on integrating their sensor into more technologies, particularly smartphones and wristwatches.

The technology is currently sold on a business-to-business level, but availability for private consumers is in progress.

Photo: Elfi-Tech