ABSTRACT

Our nation is facing an opioid crisis with thousands of people overdosing each year. The treatment is with naloxone which is a competitive inhibitor of the opioid receptors in the brain. The problem is that the victim depends on someone else to diagnose an overdose and administer naloxone. This paper aims to construct a device that uses a photoplethysmographic biosensor to detect abnormalities in the heart rate. Upon detection of an abnormal heart rate, it contacts the user and if there is no response it automatically delivers naloxone transdermally. First naloxone cream was formulated and the absorption through pig skin was tested using HPLC. Also, naloxone solution was injected to the pig skin using  microneedles and the absorption was tested using HPLC.

The components of the watch were assembled by soldering the wires to the voltage components. The ground wires were soldered to the ground components and the digital wires to the digital ones. The watch was coded using Arduino IDE to create a conditional program in which upon detection of drops in heart rate and lack of response from the watch wearer, it engages a solenoid and delivers naloxone automatically. A housing device was designed. The device was tested by introducing a heart abnormality and checking that the naloxone was automatically delivered.