When any person hears the term “health wearables” they most regularly bring to mind units like the Jawbone Up or the Misfit Flash that assist customers monitor their steps taken and calories burned. however progressively more startups are turning far from the patron health sector to center of attention on wearable technology that might actually store lives. One such startup is BioSerenity, which last week gained the first annual iiAwards, an extension of the prestigious Grands Prix de l’innovation awarded by using the town of Paris. the point of interest of the iiAwards is to recognize an effective startup that’s developing expertise that can have a very meaningful impression on individuals’s lives. BioSerenity’s winning product is the WEMU, a biosensor-weighted down wearable that uses the power of big data to diagnose and treat one of the most least understood ailments—epilepsy. I spoke with BioSerenity’s CEO, Pierre-Yves Frouin—an engineer with a history in the pharmaceutical and well being diagnostics box—to find out about the software and see just how big of a transformation wearables could make to sufferers’ lives someday.
a tough diagnosis
Epilepsy is neurological dysfunction that motives the sufferer to experience generic seizures. while there may be nonetheless much that is unknown in regards to the illness it is known that the phenomena causing time-honored seizures is as a result of “excessive electrical discharges” in various groups of mind cells, in line with the sector health group. Epilepsy is a in style disease affecting 1 in each 26 people in the world, consistent with The Epilepsy basis. fortunately, over 70% of people with the illness will respond to remedy. but attending to the point where a affected person gets remedy is an important barrier. That’s because although epilepsy affects so many it’s a notoriously troublesome disease to diagnose. “Epilepsy is a illness that has effects on 50 million individuals around the globe,” says Frouin. “in order to fully diagnose sufferers docs wish to file a seizure. With present methods this is very difficult considering the fact that they’re expensive, availability is limited, and you want to convey the patient to the health facility.”
The WEMU system.however despite the fact that you do convey a affected person to the medical institution, seizures by no means happen on time table. they may occur hours and even days aside. This makes it incredibly arduous for traditional diagnostic gear to report the precise task that is happening in a patient’s brain all through a seizure. It’s random probability if a seizure happens whereas the patient is hooked up to diagnostic equipment. And with out the studying of the affected person’s electrical job within the brain right through a seizure the docs gained’t have the information they need to diagnose the precise type of epileptic disorder the affected person has. That’s where BioSerenity’s Wearable Epilepsy Monitoring Unit (WEMU) is available in. “With the WEMU patients can be recorded at dwelling and the prospect of recording will increase significantly,” says Frouin. “This will have to enable patients to be identified rather more quickly after which obtain the proper remedy, which is essential to lend a hand patients reside a wholesome life.”
help One, help Many
The WEMU is a device made from three components that work together to untether the affected person from a sanatorium’s diagnostic tools. the first part is a shirt and non-compulsory cap that’s weighted down with biosensors that record the affected person’s physiological characteristics. These traits are transferred from the wearable to the affected person’s smartphone app by the use of Bluetooth. The app then does the heavy lifting, processing the patient’s physiological traits. Its algorithms are designed not best to identify a seizure, however to warn of a conceivable upcoming seizure and alert the patient and their caretakers. the information the app techniques also negates the want to go right into a clinic to be hooked up to traditional diagnostic machines. the information the WEMU collects can then be proven to a doctor, who could make a diagnosis.
WEMU in use at dwelling.
but the WEMU doesn’t just cease at appearing as a warning and diagnostic tool for particular person patients. The 1/3 leg of its stool is large knowledge. After the WEMU app data seizure task, it anonymizes it and uploads it to the cloud, the place that knowledge can be used via researchers in the container who can study it to examine extra about the illness. this allows the WEMU to not just assist particular person sufferers, but probably all of them. “Epilepsy is not one, but several problems mixed, and there’s nonetheless a lot to study,” says Frouin, who worked for Johnson & Johnson’s medical diagnostics division before launching BioSerenity. “the problem used to be that too few patients were recorded having seizures. via increasing the collection of patients recorded sooner than, all over, and after seizures, loads will be discovered and the mechanisms of evolution of the disease will have to be better understood. large-data instruments are additionally giving researchers an entire new method of structuring the seek for patterns.”
the way forward for Wearables
whereas the WEMU is supposed for use at dwelling and along with a person’s smartphone, it is not a client well being software in the way that almost all health wearables are. it’s a certified scientific instrument so as to be made on hand to docs who then prescribe it to their patients. And yet, whereas the WEMU is very advanced by traditional well being wearable requirements, it almost definitely wouldn’t be financially practicable if these more effective heath tech gadgets didn’t come prior to it. “We use smartphone functions, a clinical cloud machine, and digital sensors,” says Frouin. “a lot of that know-how didn’t exist a number of years ago or was once too dear.” however due to advances on the patron entrance, startups like Frouin’s can take clinical wearables further. As for what Frouin thinks the future holds for good know-how helping to reinforce our lives? “I consider there’s quite a few innovation to come via pass-matching different sectors and bringing together folks from different industries or from different areas of experience,” he says. “within the wearables space, there is nonetheless quite a bit to do. we now have determined to center of attention on clinical innovation, but any other people may need to center of attention on fashion or video video games. so long as innovation is done for the great and happiness of individuals i attempt to keep a favorable perspective toward all sectors.” still, Frouin warns customers to all the time verify the health claims of sensible wearables and different health tech devices. “in the wellness house, every now and then the science behind the claims is lacking, however within the clinical domain claims should be substantiated and regulatory pointers are strict, so with the intention to be successful you need to be impactful. That said, I consider medical doctors, sufferers, and shoppers should try to do their very own fact checking as ceaselessly as imaginable.” As for what purposes Frouin would prefer BioSerenity to focal point on subsequent, he won’t say. however he’s satisfied he started with epilepsy, since the expertise has been very rewarding. “engaged on understanding the mind is attention-grabbing and there used to be quite a few fortify from docs pushing us to work on epilepsy,” he says. “once we started we realized that there was once lots to do in that container to enhance sufferers’ lives. We obtain beef up messages from patients or parents virtually every week so it retains our motivation very high.”
