Artificial Intelligence to improve the life quality of Alzheimer's patients

Feb 05, 2019

The UPC coordinates the European eHealth research project CaregiversPRO-MMD, under which a virtual health platform has been created to support both Alzheimer patients and their caregivers and health professionals.

The initiative, funded within the framework of the European Horizon 2020 program, includes seven partners, between university research centers, entities and companies in Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Greece and Italy. Currently, four clinical trials of the developed platform at the 'CaregiversPRO-MMD' project are being carried out in France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain, in the latter case it is being carried out at UManresa-FUB. Each of the pilots includes 400 people, of which half are people with dementia and the other half are carers. The results will be announced as of May.

 

The online platform works as a social network and offers personalized and advanced tools for each user according to their needs. It is intended to improve the life quality of patients and their caregivers.

 

The objective of the project, led by the researcher at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya · BarcelonaTech (UPC) Ulises Cortés, from the research center of Intelligence Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (IDEAI-UPC), is to take advantage of the new information technologies to provide solutions to the needs and problems generated by the chronic diseases associated with human aging. The project is funded by the European Horizon 2020 program and includes the design of an app to monitor patients with a mild level of this type of dementia. This app offers tools to support caregivers and allows the interconnection between them, to share experiences, and also with healthcare professionals.

 

Therefore, the objective of the virtual platform is to improve the flow of information between the social and health system and the patients and caregivers. The professionals attending the patients receive accurate information about their condition, and the caregivers receive contents that helps improving their medical and healthcare knowledge, such as, information about the patients drugs (side effects and interactions) to reduce the risk factors associated with the evolution of neurodegenerative diseases. All this makes the environment of the dependent people cohesive, informed and prepared so that they receive the best possible attention and support.

 

Credit to the original source (in Catalan).