Digital health opportunities are popping up everywhere and in every part of the nation. The IoT Journal (Internet of Things) recently profiled a hospital down the street from me who is exploring IoT’s potential to bring drug free relief to patients. Here’s a short excerpt from the article:
Until recently, when health-care providers wanted to gauge the level of discomfort a patient was enduring, they typically had to ask that individual to rate his or her pain—for example, on a scale of 1 to 10—and then use that information to plan treatment accordingly. If they wanted to ease the patient’s pain, they needed to administer medication.
Several months ago AccendoWave released an alternative solution that does not require medication and is personalized to each patient. The system was released in June 2015, says Martha Lawrence, AccendoWave’s founder and CEO, and has since been tested at several facilities. The company has spent seven years researching its solution for assessing patient discomfort levels, and is now using a headband that measures electroencephalography (EEG) activity and prompts a tablet PC to provide content aimed at reducing that discomfort.
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The AccendoWave headband, which has seven EEG sensor leads built into it, transmits its brain-wave measurements to the tablet via a Bluetooth connection. The tablet, a Samsung Tab 4, uses its built-in AccendoWave software to process patient brain-wave data and then display diversionary content, including games, music, video clips and full-length movies. If, as a patient views a specific piece of content, the brain waves change to indicate increasing comfort, that content remains on the screen. If the content does not appear to have a positive effect on the brain waves, the software continues to select other content until it displays something appealing to the patient.
Pretty interesting approach. The article does note that they don’t use the brainwave data to determine how much medication to administer. They just use it as a way to assess the system’s effectiveness. They also do patient surveys to assess the impact of the device on a patient’s comfort. The article says that since the hospital implemented the system in the hospital, “1,600 patients have used the device to date, and more than 450 have completed surveys…More than 90 percent of responders reported viewing the system in a positive light.”
I’ve seen these EEG sensors for a while and they’re pretty neat. However, I always wondered how they’d actually be implemented and how they could be used to benefit patient care. No doubt it’s still early in their efforts to use and assess brainwaves, but it’s a pretty interesting solution to tie brain wave activity to soothing images. I’ll be watching to see how this evolves.
