Virtual services to revolutionize the diagnostic approach
di Martina D'Onofrio
December 10, 2021 - Brain Innovations is the spin-off ofUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma selected (out of over 190 applications) in the call for start-ups announced by Confindustria as part of Connect 2021. With the aim of developing devices in the field of telemedicine for telediagnosis, telemonitoring and personalized home therapy of neurological pathologies, the spin-off has already developed in collaboration with IBM 'Parkinson bot', a chatbot dedicated to patients suffering from Parkinson's, caregivers and family members, based on natural language processing and able to answer questions and concerns about the disease 24 hours a day.
In particular, the start-up founded by the neurologist Lazzaro Di Biase aims to solve – through the use of artificial intelligence systems – three big problems related to Parkinson's disease: the low diagnostic accuracy which leads to about 800 erroneous diagnoses per year, the absence of objective biomarkers for patient monitoring which makes multiple check-ups necessary, the therapeutic management of the high fluctuation of motor symptoms. As regards the diagnostic phase, one of the first symptoms of Parkinson's disease manifests itself through hypomimia, a decreased ability to change facial expressions that the neurologist is able to recognize through physical examination. Brain Innovations proposes a model of pattern recognition able analyze facial parameters starting from images taken with a simple video camera, managing to extract numerical data useful for differentiating the healthy patient from the sick one. An analogous system can be applied to the voice recordings of patients since the lowering of the tone of voice is also included among the signs of the disease: some studies show that thesound wave analysis than a voice recording of even just 10 seconds, made by a machine, can return objective numerical results capable of assess motor status and identify patients with Parkinson's disease.
Technologies without space and time barriers that can revolutionize the diagnostic approach with the possibility of screening at reduced costs and times and with significant repercussions in terms of early diagnosis. Even more promising is the ability to make a therapeutic tele management with the development of wearable devices (smartwatch type) and minimally invasive such as skin sensors for detecting the motor fluctuations of patients undergoing oral, infusion or brain stimulation therapies. The health system guarantees a maximum of 3 check-ups per year for patients in therapy and this limit is also set for telemedicine visits: in the face of daily fluctuations, responsible for movement disorders and therefore for disease complications such as falls and fractures , continuous telemonitoring could guarantee a path of personalized medicine with life expectancies equal to those of healthy people.
The possibility of using it looms on the horizon MCP pipeline automatic, and at the same time personalized on the basis of specific parameters, for the management of daily therapy. Algorithms also applicable to other pathologies widespread on a global scale such as, for example, for measuring blood glucose levels in diabetes, and which lead to a complete rethinking of the governance of the health system, in the favorable scenario of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan in which one billion euros is allocated to investments in telemedicine.
