Epilepsy Patient Remote Monitoring

Three million Americans and 50 million around the world suffer from active epilepsy and its estimated that the quality of life of 200 million people worldwide is directly affected by epilepsy, including the family members and friends of those who are living with the disease.

Epileptics have 2-3 times higher mortality rate compared to the general population and are 24 times more likely to suffer sudden death. Approximately 30 per cent of these individuals suffer chronic seizures which cannot be controlled using therapeutics.

Epilepsy is defined as a history of the disorder plus a seizure or use of anti-epileptic medicine in the last five years.
Many existing systems for diagnosing and monitoring epileptic conditions are bulky, invasive and expensive, which presents a huge opportunity for a start-up.

By leveraging consumer mobile devices, Chicago-based software company Wave Technology Group is proposing to replace these legacy systems with a lightweight, minimally invasive, and most importantly affordable solution.

By taking advantage of existing technologies as well as new ones, the platform allows continuous EEG (brain wave) monitoring while the patient continues their daily activities, using cloud services to passively store and analyze the data and detect changes in brain activity.

The combination of physical sensors, communicating wirelessly with a nearby device that collects and transmits the data is often referred to as a wireless body area network (WBAN). This concept has potential application in many disease conditions and is an exciting frontier in mobile medicine or mHealth. Read below to learn how Wave developed its prescription-strength ambulatory EEG monitor.

On the patient-side, data is captured via body-worn sensors, which interact wirelessly with a Smartphone app via Bluetooth, and sent to the cloud where it is processed and transferred to a clinician-side app for real-time remote patient monitoring.

Benefits:
1. Remote real-time monitoring of the Epilepsy Patient.
2. Creates a central repository of data for future investigation.
3. Creates a facility to provide care to the patient beyond what is now possible.
4. Provides better quality of life for the patient.
5. Provides true mobility to the patient beyond the hospital walls.

Source: http://wavetechnologygroup.net/