Mission and Vision
Mission & Vision
TeleRehaB aims for developing an AI-based Decision Support System, building upon/expanding on previously developed platforms, tools, obtained results and know-how (i.e., HOLOBALANCE, SMART BEAR projects), to support effective and affordable treatment for patients at risk of fall for both in clinic and remote home-based care.
In an increasingly ageing population, falls are a rising epidemic that account for most (58%) emergency department attendances in over 65s and will cost Europe over 45 billion euros by 2050 (Eurosafe, 2015). Falls are a syndemia that coexists with multiple comorbidities in older adults, such as cardiovascular disease, mood and cognitive disorders that increase the risk of serious falls injuries in older adults and that affect the intervention outcomes. Multimodal, multifaceted falls prevention programmes targeting specific needs of high-risk individuals are thus of essence.
However, there is either a lack/limited access to falls specialist services within Europe; lack of integrated clinician education; paucity of well-trained clinicians to provide required individualised falls assessment and care. Patient adherence to existing exercise programmes is poor with 70% dropping out early. Balance and postural control involve heterogeneous systems (vestibular, visual, proprioceptive, and central nervous) and relies on their connection and ability for integration and feedback in real time. Falls are a challenging condition for medics, since they can be the result of various pathologies and therefore require input by various specialties with repercussions for required education, integrated care and adaption of optimal and multimodal solutions.
Balance physiotherapy is the key intervention for falls prevention. Technology based solutions that support non-expert clinicians to provide multifaceted falls prevention/rehabilitation, using AR that increase patient adherence and that are already developed and evaluated in the context of previous projects (HOLOBALANCE, SMART BEAR) will provide wider, easier (home based) and earlier access to high quality falls services and interventions with a proven increased effectiveness compared to standard care.
AI tools can provide a better matching between patient and therapist, based both on area of specialty of the healthcare professional as well as to personality trait, aiming towards a win-win situation. Remote diagnostic assessments are another unmet need for faster clinical examinations.
TeleRehaB DSS will be able to cover the entire pathway:
- Enhancing initial clinical precision treatment and patient selection for each intervention strand.
- Target the relevant public health sector, providing valuable information at public health policy level, in terms of cost-effectiveness (i.e., in terms of human resources and equipment needed), retro and prospectively validated with clinical study, providing required evidence to ensure clinical personnel take up and incorporate AI solutions in clinical guidelines and everyday practice.
- Providing comprehensive evidence-based interventions distinguishing between the effects of different factors (e.g., medical history, diagnosis, physical activity, medication, side effects, frailty, cognition).
- Personalising rehabilitation interventions in terms of type and intensity of the intervention, technology used, projection of compliance and expected outcomes, taking into account each patient’s needs and expected benefits along with available resources. TeleRehaB DSS will offer a support for challenging decision making for patients at risk of fall in many layers.
- Inclusion of third parties outside Europe will ensure the validation in other populations, taking into account multifactorial variables (medical, behavioural, socioeconomic, geodemographic, distance/access to healthcare).
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