New design for phototherapy device and skin colour analysis

The phototherapy also called as a light therapy is used extensively to reduce the high bilirubin levels of the newborns suffering from jaundice. This light therapy consists of exposure to daylight or to specific wavelength of light using light emitting diodes, lasers, fluorescent lamps, dichroic lamps or very bright, full spectrum light. In existing phototherapy devices, there is direct exposure of radiation on the neonate's eyes and also to the surroundings that may cause nausea, giddiness and headache to the staffs working in the nursery. In this paper, a new prototype which avoids exposure of radiation to the eyes as well as to the surrounding area has been designed. An array consisting of 10 blue LEDs and 2 white LEDs are placed in a series-parallel configuration which ensures uniform illumination of light to the body alone. In this device the user can set the intensity level and the time of illumination prior to the treatment. A non-invasive method to detect the jaundice has also been done with image processing by analysing the spectrogram that compares the images of the jaundice skin and the normal skin.