Epilepsy patients often suffer from irregular and recurrent epileptic seizures which can lead to unfortunate outcomes if those around them fail to provide them with timely medical attention. Vital Signs Monitoring (VSM) watches, which are able to monitor patients' vital signs in real time, can either preventively manage anomalies or inform patients’ family in advance so that epilepsy patients would not encounter unfortunate incidents. In this article, we will introduce you to the development of the VSM watches and to solutions for epilepsy patients offered by ADI in collaboration with Vitruvian Shield.
VSM Watches - the savior and hope for epilepsy patients
Epilepsy is a neurological disorder characterized by recurrent seizures, its symptoms being recurrent seizures or either long or short severe convulsions which may result in physical harm and even fractures to the patient. According to the Epilepsy Foundation, there are about 65 million epilepsy patients globally, with sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) occurring at a rate of about 1:1000 per year, these put a considerable strain on epilepsy patients and their families.
Imagine yourself as an epilepsy patient − if you can predict when you may develop epilepsy, you can take precautions against it. Likewise, as a healthcare provider, you can obtain data from monitoring the vital signs of epilepsy patients, hence allowing them direct access to personalized treatment plans at home.
Epilepsy patients will now feel more comfortable continually monitoring their health by simply glancing at their wrists or view clinical vital sign monitoring data in the supporting application. Such digital medical technologies neither not particularly distant nor require decades to be operationalized because Smart watch and App developed by Vitruvian Shield have made these technologies a reality.
Vitruvian Shield SA, a Switzerland-based medical technology start-up, aims to significantly improve the quality of daily life outside the hospital by providing medically certified solutions which accurately monitor health signs. Vitruvian Shield launched electronic health Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) which may be applied in remote patient monitoring, diagnosis, and medical research, and also for the fast-track development, scaling, and commercialization of a medical-grade epilepsy detection platform which enable patients to proactively manage their epilepsy by comprehensively monitoring all important physiological biomarkers through smart watch and easy-to-use app.
Helping epilepsy patients personalize health monitoring
Paulo Martins was diagnosed with Type II diabetes shortly after he developed a Swiss watch for his own global brands. A few months later, Paulo’s wife learned that she was suffering from brain tumor that could lead to epilepsy. These major changes in their lives are the driving force behind Paulo establishing Vitruvian Shield and the development of VSM watch and app.
In 2018, Vitruvian Shield developed a proof-of-concept using ADI's prototype and followed this up with the development of mobile app, web app, and the API. Vitruvian Shield adopted ADI’s platform equipment – the VSM watch. The platform device will help accelerate the roll-out of new wearable monitoring technology applications in emerging remote care markets.
In the case of Vitruvian Shield, the ADI VSM watch is the ideal platform for product development as it provides synchronized data output across a range of parameters for vital signs. The Vitruvian Shield smartwatch, which is very similar to most smartwatches, is comfortable to wear and clearly displays data outputs which includes time, but it is very different from consumer smart watches.
Conventional smartwatches rely on proprietary algorithms to convert raw signal into a limited set of parameters which include steps, heart rate, and body temperature without providing immediate access to the raw signal measurements. As for Vitruvian Shield, synchronous signals from each optical and electronic sensor in the VSM smartwatch provide raw material from which Vitruvian Shield developed a complete epilepsy patient monitoring ecosystem. Vitruvian Shield's machine learning algorithm scans the VSM smartwatch for physiological signal patterns to identify the unique numerical characteristics of focal and generalized tonic-clonic seizures (GTCS), the primary symptoms of a seizure.
As far as such data is concerned, the VSM smartwatch’s key difference from typical consumer-targeted smartwatches lie in Vitruvian Shield generating clinical-grade data. One can therefore not only know the number of steps taken, but also analyze how these steps were taken and whether detailed information about these steps are used to generate health indicators.
In addition, the Vitruvian Shield app truly makes smartwatches “smart”. It allows epilepsy patients to view critical information which includes real-time VSM data, track of medication, and creation of seizure journal to enable doctors to track/adjust treatment plans, and schedule appointments with physicians to obtain medical assistance via telemedicine. In the event of a seizure when the epilepsy patient is unable to confirm their health status, the application allows patients to receive medical assistance over voice.
Mature hardware design in VSM watches is integrated with epilepsy data algorithm
ADI’s VSM watch and Vitruvian Shield’s algorithm creates a complete end-to-end platform for identifying early key indicators to detect seizures. By monitoring patients’ vital sign signals 24/7 and comprehensively displaying the collected data, healthcare providers can now better adjust or change a patient’s course of treatment based on the patient’s responses, all of which without requiring the patient visit the physician's office.
ADI’s VSM watch is based on a set of high-performance sensors which carry out front-end detection from which clinical-grade data can be generated. These outputs allow Vitruvian Shield to become an ideal development platform. In addition to providing highly perceptive insights for both epilepsy patients and care providers, VSM watches can be used by pharmaceutical companies to support clinical trials and help detect abnormalities at an early stage than solely rely solely on the hospital’s monitoring. In addition, VSM watches can be directly used to support scientific research and serve as a wearable monitoring device for patients during research trials and research investigations.
By providing startups like Vitruvian Shield with their VSM watches, ADI strongly promotes innovation and eliminates the need for developers to develop proprietary hardware. The VSM watch has significantly accelerated the launch of Vitruvian Shield products and reduces development risks and costs. Startups such as Vitruvian Shield can also re-badge VSM watches for bulk shipments and focus their development efforts on proprietary software and systems.
If it weren’t for ADI's clinical wearable devices, Vitruvian Shield may have never seen daylight, and it is through ADI’s suggestion that Vitruvian Shield successfully refocused its development efforts on epilepsy, a clear and important target market. The mature hardware in VSM watches provides Vitruvian Shield a foundation to develop the next generation of products. Through the hardware designs and sensors within ADI’s VSM watch, Vitruvian Shield was assisted in developing a new design which provided much more communication and diagnostics functionality.
Providing early warning to epilepsy patients to prevent accidents
Like many other innovations in remote patient monitoring, Vitruvian Shield’s VSM watch holds the promise of a new life for patients (herein epilepsy patients). As it is not possible to predict when seizures will occur again, a patient afflicted with severe epilepsy is certainly overwhelmed by fear. Should the seizure occur in an area with medical care immediately available, outcomes may be largely favorable. Patients are however worried that if the next seizure occurs at the wrong time and wrong place, bodily outcomes may be much less favorable.
Vitruvian Shield is absolutely able to provide early warning of possible seizures, thereby providing epilepsy patients and caretaking professionals with a degree of assurance. Vitruvian Shield also provides real-time health information to caretaking professionals to help them effectively manage patients. Epilepsy patients now can live a life free from the fear of seizures occurring without any early warning or medical assistance. This technology is proof of the profound biomedical expertise undergirding Vitruvian Shield and their research partners', as well as the clinical grade functionality of ADI’s VSM watch.
ADI's VSM watch allows customers to better focus on their professional capabilities, accelerate product development, hence helping customers succeed. Vitruvian Shield's VSM watch has demonstrated to epilepsy patients how VSM technology can both fundamentally improve their quality of life and significantly reduce the stress and burden experienced by themselves and their families.
Conclusion
Despite the uncertainty of seizures epilepsy patients must face, VSM watches provide early warnings of seizure and medical care assistance, thus radically improve the quality of life and eliminate the stress face by epilepsy patients and their families. ADI, which provide the hardware design which made it into the VSM watch, allows manufacturers to develop solutions in disease monitoring, hence allowing them to better focus on their medical expertise and accelerate product development to benefit even more patients and their families.