Machine-Learning System Monitors Patient Pain During Surgery

This article is part of our exclusive IEEE Journal Watch series in partnership with IEEE Xplore. In the operating room, patients undergoing procedures with local anesthesia, while still conscious, may have difficulty expressing their levels of pain. Some, such as infants or people with dementia, may not be able to communicate these feelings at all. In the search for a better way to monitor patients’ pain, a team of researchers has developed a contactless method that analyzes a combination of patients’ heart rate data and facial expressions to estimate the pain they’re feeling.