A vital signs monitoring watch can ensure peace of mind for epilepsy patients

A vital signs monitoring watch can ensure peace of mind for epilepsy patients

Imagine if people with epilepsy could predict when they were likely to have an epilepsy, so they could take preventive measures in advance. Alternatively, as a medical staff, you can obtain relevant data from the vital sign monitoring of epilepsy patients, allowing patients to receive personalized treatment plans directly at home.

Such a vital signs monitoring watch, which can ensure that epilepsy patients have peace of mind, is not far away and will not be put into use for decades. Vitruvian Shield's smartwatches and apps make it a reality now.

People with epilepsy can now feel more reassured by being able to continuously monitor their health with just a glance at their wrist or view clinical-grade vital signs monitoring data in a companion app.

Overview

 Vitruvian Shield SA: It is a Swiss-based medical technology start-up company whose goal is to significantly improve the quality of patients' daily life outside the hospital by providing medically certified solutions that can accurately monitor health signals.

Application : eHealth software as a service (SaaS), which can be used for remote patient monitoring, diagnosis and medical research.

Challenge : Rapid development, expansion, and commercialization of medical-grade epilepsy detection platforms.

Goal : Comprehensive monitoring of all important physiological biomarkers via smartwatches and easy-to-use apps, enabling patients to proactively control their epilepsy.

According to VITRUVIAN SHIELD, helping epilepsy patients must be personalized

Shortly after starting to develop Swiss watches for private brands around the world, Paulo Martins was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. A few months later, his wife learned she had a brain tumor that could cause epilepsy. These major life changes were the impetus for Paulo to found Vitruvian Shield and develop vital signs monitoring watches and apps.

In 2018, Vitruvian Shield developed a proof-of-concept using Analog Devices' prototype and subsequently developed corresponding mobile apps, web apps, and APIs.

Vitruvian Shield uses ADI's platform device, the vital signs monitoring (VSM) watch. This platform device will help accelerate the launch of new wearable monitoring technology applications in the emerging remote care market.

For Vitruvian Shield, ADI's VSM watch is an ideal platform for product development because of its ability to provide synchronized data output across the entire range of vital sign parameters. The Vitruvian Shield smartwatch is very similar to most smartwatches: comfortable to wear and able to clearly display data output including time, but it is very different from consumer smartwatches.

The Vitruvian Shield watch is a version of Analog Devices' VSM watch

Design smarter smartwatches

Typical smartwatches utilize proprietary algorithms to convert raw signals into a limited set of parameters, including step count, heart rate, and body temperature, without providing immediate access to the raw measurement signals themselves.

For Vitruvian Shield, synchronized signals from every optical and electronic sensor in the VSM watch provide the raw material from which Vitruvian Shield has developed a complete monitoring ecosystem for epilepsy patients. Vitruvian Shield's machine learning algorithm scans the physiological signal patterns generated by the VSM watch to detect the unique digital signature of focal and generalized tonic-clonic seizures (GTCS), the main symptom of epilepsy.

A key difference from regular smartwatches when it comes to this type of data is that the Vitruvian Shield generates clinical-grade data. So not only do you know how many steps you took, you can also analyze how those steps were taken and whether there were nuances or details in those steps that provide health indicators.

Vitruvian Shield VSM watch and app help people with epilepsy and their healthcare professionals manage treatment regimens

Beyond that, the Vitruvian Shield app truly puts the “smart” into smartwatches, allowing people with epilepsy to:

View key functions, including real-time vital signs monitoring data;

Track drug treatment status;

Create a seizure log so doctors can track/adjust treatment plans;

Schedule an appointment with the doctor via video;

If an epileptic seizure occurs and epilepsy patients fail to confirm their health status, they can receive medical assistance through voice.

ADI’s VSM Watch and Vitruvian Shield’s algorithms create a complete end-to-end platform that can be used to identify early critical indicators of epileptic seizure detection. By monitoring patient vital signs around the clock and comprehensively displaying the collected data, healthcare professionals can now gain insights to better adjust or alter treatment based on patient response, all without the patient needing to visit a doctor's office.

Send real-time, clinical-grade data to mobile apps and healthcare professionals, giving people with epilepsy peace of mind

ADI + VITRUVIAN SHIELD: Collaborative Innovation

ADI's vital signs monitoring watch is based on a set of high-performance sensors that detect front-ends that generate medical-grade data. These outputs make it an ideal development platform for Vitruvian Shield. As well as providing epilepsy patients and caregivers with keen insights, VSM watches can also be used by pharmaceutical companies to support clinical trials, helping to detect abnormalities at an early stage, rather than relying solely on hospital monitoring. Additionally, it can be used directly to support scientific research, as a monitoring device for patients to wear during trials and investigations.

By providing its vital signs monitoring watches to startups like Vitruvian Shield, ADI is driving innovation that eliminates the need for developers to build proprietary hardware. The watch significantly speeds up Vitruvian Shield’s time-to-market and reduces development risks and costs. Startups like Vitruvian Shield could also rebrand VSM watches shipped in bulk and then focus development efforts on their own proprietary software and systems.

Without ADI's clinical-grade wearables, the Vitruvian Shield may never have seen the light of day.

Jan-Hein Broeders, EMEA Healthcare Business Development Manager at Analog Devices, explains the relationship between ADI and Vitruvian Shield: “I think my role is to help customers succeed. Looking at other fast-growing startups, I think the secret to success is is focus. It was with ADI's advice that Vitruvian Shield successfully focused its development efforts on epilepsy, a clear and important target market for Vitruvian Shield's proven hardware to develop next-generation products. provides the basis.

Paulo Martins, founder and CEO of Vitruvian Shield, said, “Our first-generation vital signs monitoring watch will demonstrate to people with epilepsy that our technology can radically improve their quality of life. Beyond that, we can also use The hardware design of VSM Watch, and all the sensors inside it, resulted in a new design that provides more communication and diagnostic capabilities. None of this would be possible without the excellent support of VSM Watch and Analog Devices.”

Let confidence and support be "worn" on the wrists of epilepsy patients

Like many other innovations in remote patient monitoring, the Vitruvian Shield vital signs monitoring watch offers patients, in this case epilepsy patients, the hope of a new life. People with severe epilepsy are haunted by fear because they cannot predict when their next epileptic seizure will occur. If the epilepsy occurs in a safe place with medical staff nearby, the outcome is generally harmless. However, patients are always worried that if the next attack occurs in the wrong place at the wrong time, it will lead to physical injury or worse.

Vitruvian Shield provides early warning of possible epileptic seizures, providing some reassurance to epilepsy patients and their caregivers. It also provides real-time health information to caregivers, helping them manage patients' conditions effectively. People with epilepsy now have the opportunity to live a life without fear of having a seizure without warning or medical assistance. This technology is a testament to the deep biomedical expertise of Vitruvian Shield and its research partners, as well as the clinical-grade capabilities of ADI’s vital signs monitoring watches.

source

1, 2: Early death and sudden death in epilepsy | Epilepsy Foundation

About Analog Devices

Analog Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADI) is a leading global semiconductor company dedicated to bridging the physical and digital worlds to enable breakthrough innovations at the intelligent edge. ADI provides solutions that combine analog, digital and software technologies to promote the continued development of digital factories, automobiles and digital health, address the challenges of climate change, and establish reliable interconnections between people and everything in the world. ADI's fiscal year 2022 revenue exceeds US$12 billion and has more than 24,000 employees worldwide. Working with 125,000 customers around the world, ADI empowers innovators to exceed what is possible.