You had that extra glass of wine right before the dessert course, but was it too much? Do you make a trip to the bathroom to see if you can make it there in a straight line? Stare at yourself in the mirror to see if you can determine if your eyes are glazed over? Or perhaps attempt to text a friend to see if you can still string together a coherent sentence? Whatever your previous methods may have been, in the near future, it may be as simple as wearing a wristband.
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have been working on a wearable device that can track the wearer’s level of inebriation and they believe it is showing some promise.
The wearable wrist devices have begun to be put to the test, and current data is showing that they can fairly accurately measure how much alcohol a person drank and how intoxicated they may be.
The wristbands have sensors built in that collect raw transdermal alcohol concentration (TAC) data which essentially measures how much ethanol is in your sweat on your skin. The data is then sent to an app via Bluetooth and a graph to shows the amount of alcohol in the wearer’s system. Another version of the wristband works with Apple Watches by swapping the bands with a sensor-equipped band.
The system is not yet perfect as it is no surprise that TAC is not quite as accurate as law enforcement-used blood tests in determining someone’s blood alcohol content (BAC). Studies maintain that the most accurate way to determine the amount of alcohol in one’s system is through a BAC reading from a breathalyzer, blood, or urine test.
Researchers are working to perfect the correlation between the TAC numbers taken from the device and actual BAC. The current data shows that the numbers are close, but aren’t identical. The hope is that by being able to find an accurate correlation between the data points, they will be able to offer a less invasive method of blood alcohol content testing.
One of the issues that researchers are still trying to work out is the initial time lag of the device. It currently takes between 24 and 30 minutes for the readings to start from the start time of drinking. Medical journals have pointed out that “More reliable and robust prototypes will be required. Also, field testing in large and diverse groups of people drinking variable alcohol doses in real-world conditions will be necessary for comprehensive assessment of the relationship between transdermal and blood alcohol concentrations.”
It will be interesting to see how quickly the analysis can be processed with the progress of science. It will also be interesting to see if the integration of such products into the mainstream public will help to reduce the incorrect assumption of some drivers believing that they are not impaired and can safely drive themselves and others home. Or perhaps the first official integration will not be to the public at all, but rather in the hands of law enforcement who will start to use a simple touch to quickly and accurately determine a person’s alcohol level.
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