Patent Issued for System, method and apparatus for cognitive oral health management (USPTO 11139076): International Business Machines Corporation

2021 OCT 27 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- According to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx journalists, a patent by the inventors Adams, Ebony C. (Austin, TX, US), Bender, Michael (Rye Brook, NY, US), Compton, Christian (Austin, TX, US), Fox, Jeremy R. (Georgetown, TX, US), Ravi, Manjunath (Austin, TX, US), filed on December 14, 2017, was published online on October 5, 2021.

The assignee for this patent, patent number 11139076, is International Business Machines Corporation (Armonk, New York, United States).

Reporters obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Oral care is of critical importance across the globe. Today, there is no efficient way to regularly and proactively detect if individuals are optimizing their personal oral care or if a dental visit may be required. Dental cleanings, typically performed twice per year for those who can afford them, generally provide only an instantaneous evaluation of the oral health of a patient. A broader spatial and temporal and more proactive view of personal oral care and resulting changes in oral health would be helpful to oral healthcare providers and their patients.”

In addition to obtaining background information on this patent, NewsRx editors also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “In general, embodiments described herein provide approaches for performing cognitive oral health management. Specifically, data from at least one internet of things (IoT) sensor and data from at least one visual image sensor are collected over time for a user via one or more sensors operatively coupled with one or more personal daily oral care devices as the user is performing a periodic oral care activity with the one or more personal daily oral care devices. Collected data are subjected to cognitive diagnostics to identify abnormalities in a user’s oral healthcare regimen and physiological abnormalities within the oral cavity by, for example, categorizing data over time. A report for a medical professional may be generated providing recommendations of potential diagnoses and treatment options.

“One non-limiting aspect of the present invention provides a computer-implemented method for cognitive oral health management of a user comprising: collecting data for the user from at least one internet of things (IoT) sensor operatively coupled with at least one personal daily oral care device as the user is performing a periodic oral care activity with the personal daily oral care device; collecting visual image data of the oral cavity for the user from at least one visual image sensor operatively coupled with the at least one personal daily oral care device as the user is performing the periodic oral care activity with the personal daily oral care device; identifying care abnormalities in the user’s oral healthcare regimen by categorizing and analyzing IoT sensor data; identifying physiological abnormalities within the oral cavity by categorizing and analyzing the visual image data; performing cognitive diagnostics over time on the identified abnormalities in the user’s oral healthcare regimen and the identified physiological abnormalities within the oral cavity; and generating an oral health management report, based on the performing cognitive diagnostics, to a medical professional, the report containing recommendations of potential diagnoses and treatment options for oral health management of the user.

“Another non-limiting aspect of the present invention is directed to a cognitive oral health management system for a user comprising: at least one personal daily oral care device, at least one internet of things (IoT) sensor operatively coupled with the at least one personal daily oral care device that collects IoT data for the user as the user is performing a periodic oral care activity with the personal daily oral care device; at least one visual image sensor operatively coupled with the at least one personal daily oral care device that collects visual image data for the user as the user is performing the periodic oral care activity with the personal daily oral care device; a network adapter operatively coupled with the at least one personal oral care device that forwards IoT sensor data and visual image data to a processor for executing program instructions; a memory medium including program instructions; a bus coupled to the memory medium; and the processor for executing the program instructions, the instructions causing the system to: identify care abnormalities in the user’s oral healthcare regimen by categorizing and analyzing IoT sensor data; identify physiological abnormalities within the oral cavity by categorizing and analyzing individual frames in the visual image data recognition classifiers; perform cognitive diagnostics over time on the identified abnormalities in the user’s oral healthcare regimen and the identified physiological abnormalities within the oral cavity; and generate an oral health management report based on the performing cognitive diagnostics to a medical professional, the report containing recommendations of potential diagnoses and treatment options for oral health management of the user.

“Yet another non-limiting aspect of the present invention is directed to a computer program product for cognitive oral health management of a user, which may include, a computer readable storage device and program instructions stored on the computer readable storage device to: collect data for the user from at least one IoT sensor operatively coupled with at least one personal daily oral care device as the user is performing a periodic oral care activity with the personal daily oral care device; collect visual image data for the user from at least one visual image sensor operatively coupled with the at least one personal daily oral care device as the user is performing the periodic oral care activity with the personal daily oral care device; identify care abnormalities in the user’s oral healthcare regimen by categorizing and analyzing IoT sensor data; identify physiological abnormalities within the oral cavity by categorizing and analyzing visual image data; perform cognitive diagnostics over time on the identified abnormalities in the user’s oral healthcare regimen and the identified physiological abnormalities within the oral cavity’ and send an oral health management report based on the performing cognitive diagnostics to a medical professional, the report containing recommendations of potential diagnoses and treatment options for oral health management of the user.

“Yet still another non-limiting aspect of the present invention is directed to a method for cognitive oral health management of a user providing a computer infrastructure that includes at least one computer device that operates to perform the steps of the invention.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A computer-implemented method for cognitive oral health management of a user comprising: collecting data for the user from at least one Internet of things (IoT) sensor operatively coupled with at least one personal daily oral care device as the user is performing a periodic oral care activity with the personal daily oral care device; collecting visual image data of the oral cavity for the user from at least one visual image sensor operatively coupled over an encrypted connection with the at least one personal daily oral care device as the user is performing the periodic oral care activity with the personal daily oral care device; identifying care abnormalities in an oral healthcare regimen of the user by categorizing and analyzing IoT sensor data; identifying physiological abnormalities within the oral cavity by categorizing and analyzing the visual image data; performing real-time analysis and cognitive diagnostics over time via a cognitive engine using machine learning augmented intelligence techniques and cognitive data analysis that implements cognitive tradeoff analytics on the identified abnormalities in the oral healthcare regimen of the user and the identified physiological abnormalities within the oral cavity based on crowdsourced data; and, generating an oral health management report based on the performing cognitive diagnostics to a medical professional, the report containing recommendations of potential diagnoses and treatment options for oral health management of the user, wherein said identifying care abnormalities in the oral healthcare regimen of the user further comprises categorizing and analyzing at least one of spatial, temporal, and chemical data collected from the IoT sensor, wherein said identifying physiological abnormalities within the oral cavity further comprises categorizing and analyzing individual frames in the visual image data using cognitive visual recognition engine-based image recognition classifiers and classifying resulting data with specific use cases to create and develop a medical corpus of oral-related data utilizing crowdsourcing, and wherein the instructions causing the system to perform real-time analysis and cognitive diagnostics over time further comprise analyzing a combination of the visual image data and spacio-temporal and chemical analysis data within the sensor data to correlate an identified physiological anomaly with an identified neglect in the oral healthcare regimen of the user.

“2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the identifying of the care abnormalities in the oral healthcare regimen of the user further comprises: retrieving a set of abnormality classifications for the at least one IoT sensor from a database; and comparing the data for the user from the at least one IoT sensor to the set of abnormality classifications for the IoT sensor data, and wherein the identifying of the physiological abnormalities within the oral cavity further comprises: retrieving a set of abnormality classifications for the at least one visual image sensor from a database; and comparing the visual image data for the user to the set of abnormality classifications for the visual image data.

“3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the performing of the cognitive diagnostics over time further comprises comparing user data with a crowdsourcing baseline containing data from a population with coincident characteristics based on expected results and abnormality classifications derived from historical measurement data of the user, historical measurements of other individuals, medical studies, medical trials, medical research, medical professionals, and data scientists.

“4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 further comprising: receiving feedback from the medical professional and incorporating the feedback into the cognitive engine for at least one of a future cognitive diagnostic and a future recommendation.

“5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein said at least one visual image sensor is selected from a group consisting of an infrared camera and an ultraviolet camera; wherein said at least one IoT sensor includes a timer, a clock, a gyroscope, an accelerometer, a tactile sensor, a chemical sensor, a thermometer, a pH sensor, a bacterial sensor, a nutrient sensor, a sensor capable of identifying concentrations of hydrogen sulfide, methyl mercaptan, dimethyl sulfide, cadaverine, putrescine, and skatole, and a sensor of user consumption for the personal daily oral care device, wherein the at least one IoT sensor and the at least one visual image sensor have a power source that is a biology-enabled generator; wherein the at least one IoT sensor and the at least one visual image sensor are both biology enabled, and wherein said at least one personal daily oral care device is a multi-sensor enabled oral irrigator.

“6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising generating an alert to the user in response to at least one of identifying areas of neglect in the oral healthcare regimen and identifying physiological abnormalities within the oral cavity.

“7. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, further comprising modifying at least one personal oral care device to operatively couple the at least one IoT sensor and the at least one visual image sensor such that the at least one IoT sensor and the at least one visual image sensor are both reversibly attached to the oral irrigator and such that the at least one personal oral care device is capable of capturing the length of time the device is used and the angle and location where the device is focused.

“8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the identifying of the physiological abnormalities within the oral cavity identifies whether tooth movement has stopped for a user wearing braces, wherein an alert is automatically issued in response to a positive identification, and wherein the performing of the real-time analysis and cognitive diagnostics over time diagnoses that braces need to be adjusted in response to a positive identification that the tooth movement has stopped.

“9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the identifying of the physiological abnormalities within the oral cavity identify whether teeth are moving back to original problem positions for a user who previously wore braces, wherein an alert is automatically issued in response to a positive identification, and wherein the performing of the real-time analysis and cognitive diagnostics over time diagnoses that the user who previously wore braces is not wearing a retainer in response to a positive identification that the teeth are moving back into original problem positions.”

For more information, see this patent: Adams, Ebony C. System, method and apparatus for cognitive oral health management. U.S. Patent Number 11139076, filed December 14, 2017, and published online on October 5, 2021. Patent URL: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=11139076.PN.&OS=PN/11139076RS=PN/11139076

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