03 avril 2023
An American team has developed a necklace to help smokers quit smoking. This tool could be effective in preventing the risk of relapse. Explanations.
Many tools are available for smoking cessation: patches, gums and other nicotine substitutes. If some smokers manage to stop their consumption, however, many of them relapse. It is to prevent this relapse that the team of Nabil Alshurafa, from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine has developed a small connected blue box 5 or 6 cm square, to be worn as a pendant.
Establish a “smoker’s topography”
“This collar can detect when the cigarette is lit, when the person puts it in their mouth, if they take a puff, how much smoke they inhale and what is the delay between each puff “, describes the author, who tested the object with 19 smoking participants. These measurements taken during the real-time sessions correspond to the “topography of the smoker”, that is to say globally to his way of smoking. This is very useful for researchers to measure and assess exposure to carbon monoxide, for example, and better understand the relationship between this exposure and tobacco-related diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes or even COPD.
But above all, these measures provide useful data to help smokers better understand their personal way of smoking and what risks making them relapse after withdrawal. For some, it will be a stress shot, for others a drunken evening or even a simple coffee. This finer and more personalized information makes it possible to predict when a person is going to crack, and thus intervene, for example. via a phone call from a health coach or even a message of encouragement.
However, “while this tool seems very promising, its effectiveness in smoking cessation programs still needs to be validated in larger studies”, conclude the authors.