This is Benjamin Barron from Delray Beach, Florida. He is very self disciplined with a winning smile, good posture, strong handshake and an air of determination.
He is developing an App to assist in the cessation of Habit Cough. He started development after a friend had a vicious Habit Cough.
What type of person does this? Teen genius? (Yes) Good guy - heck yes!
The world needs budding young researchers like this 9th grader (wait, what?) Did you say, "... 9th grade?" Yes! (10th grader now.) What were you doing in 10th grade?
Dr. Miles Weinberger MD Requests you to call!
Here’s a great update about Benjamin Barron! Dr. Miles Weinberger is the foremost world expert on Habit Cough and the Weinberger Procedure used to “rescue” (cure) children and now adults from around the world.
He asked me to have Benjamin contact him ASAP!
I gave Ms. Dawn his contact information via a voicemail.
Dr. Weinberger’s email address is also on https://www.habitcough.com/stories where we wrote about Benjamin’s awesome use of science and technology.
Don’t stop! Never sleep. Prove that it works and you will be helping children and adults around the world!
Response from Benjamin Barron: I am so honored that Dr. Weinberger liked my project.
I was amazed to watch the video of Dr. Weinberger curing the young girl of her severe habit cough.
It is incredible to also learn of Dr. Weinberger’s success in treating habit cough in other individuals using cognitive therapy.
I plan to continue to improve my app and to hopefully help other people with this distressing problem.
Thank you for your time and advice. - Ben
Benjamin Barron - The Pride of American Heritage School
Dr. Weinberger's Comments on my Reducing Habit Cough project:
"Your presentation is very good and thought-provoking since mindfulness therapy is being used for a variety of conditions with very good results.
Although the video depicted where the sensor was located, it would have been good to have a diagram of that in the PowerPoint materials.
Also, when working with vibration sensors, you should test them in various environments such as vehicles, walking/running, etc. and comment on those results."
Thank you for your review of my project.
I agree that the next step would be to test the sensor in different environments.
It is possible that the sensor would pick up other movements of the human body, and this should be tested.
I do need to work on improving the sensor because it is bulky, and would not be comfortable to wear on the chest all the time.
Project link HERE.
Abstract
Development of Smartphone Application to Reduce Habit Cough by Mindfulness-Based Approach
Habit cough affects 3 to 10% of people with chronic cough.
Chronic cough affects about 10% of the world’s population.
Habit cough is associated with considerable morbidity, reduced quality of life, anxiety, school and work absenteeism, as well as complications from medical procedures and unnecessary treatments.
Some mindfulness-based therapies like hypnosis, relaxation imagery, and cough related imagery have shown some success.
However, many patients do not have access to specialty providers to learn these techniques.
An easily accessible smartphone application that employs mindfulness approaches may help many people resolve their habit cough.
The purpose of this project is to create a smartphone application that senses a person’s cough through a vibration sensor and shows a message or an image on the phone-screen encouraging the person to relax and stop coughing.
Studies have shown that vibration sensors are highly accurate in detecting a cough.
The application was developed by using Arduino software to make and code the vibration detecting sensor.
Mindfulness based messages were created, and relaxing photos were obtained to use in the application.
Swift-5 programming code was used to develop the application.
The completed application was assessed using a vibration platform.
It was tested at five different vibration speeds, ten times for each speed, for a total of fifty trials.
The conclusion is that the application functioned well in all vibration speeds.
Upon sensing the vibrations, the smartphone application displayed the various mindfulness-based messages and images.
Updated thread from Benhamin
Hello Mr. Buettner,
I hope that you are well.
I just wanted to give you an update about my habit cough project.
Unfortunately, I had to stop working on it for a while because I was required to start a new project for my research class.
This year I created a prototype of a wearable device that opioid users can wear, which detects abnormalities in the heart rate, and if the user does not respond, the device assumes that they overdosed, and delivers naloxone (an opioid antagonist) automatically.
I presented my project at Sigma Xi in Wisconsin and won the student award and advancement to a fellow.
Link HERE to Benjamin's Habit Cough Project
I plan to start working on the habit cough app again.
After speaking with you and with Dr. Weinberger and watching the therapy session that you posted online, I realized that the app should consist of a 10-15 minute interactive video.
I applied to thinkMIT, in hopes of getting help and funding (I attached the paper).
Even if I do not get selected, I still plan to try to get funding and help from other mentors.
By the way, I saw that you posted your daughter's science fair project and her success in helping kids from around the world.
I wish her the best of luck with that.
Thank you for all your help,
Ben Barron
From Dennis:
Everything you wrote is fantastic. I love your passion and dedication to those in need.
If for some reason you ever make it up to the DC-Annapolis area, let me know because I work at NASA (30 years) and you can hang out with me for a night if you wish.
