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iSYS and TU Munich cooperate on research project ‘AI & wearables in use for neurodermatitis’
The German Dermatological Society (DDG) states that 2 million children and 2.5 million adults suffer from atopic dermatitis every year. The need for therapy and care is correspondingly high and this is precisely where the research project comes in. The aim is to show how AI and wearables can be used to support both patients and doctors in their everyday lives.
The key to success lies in the use of sensor technology attached directly to the skin, which can record medical data non-invasively and in real time. Such sensors can be built into smart watches, for example, or otherwise attached to the skin. The skin sensor sends the recorded information to the app developed by iSYS, providing patients with feedback on the condition of their skin. Patients can also record any complaints and skin findings manually by taking photos or entering text.
But it’s not just patients who can benefit from the app: The treating physicians also have access to the data and can therefore better understand the progression of the skin disease. Exogenous environmental factors such as solar radiation, humidity or outside temperature can also be called up as additional information parameters. In this way, doctors and patients are able to establish a correlation between the recorded condition of the skin and the potential cause of the deterioration in the respective skin condition. This is also where the aspect of machine learning comes into play, as the digital recording of the therapy recommendation means that the actual success of the applied treatment method can be checked at any time using the sensor data and whether there are any alternative forms of therapy that could provide even better support for the desired cure based on the health data collected.
Last but not least, research itself can also benefit from AI-controlled wearable monitoring: Test subjects in field research can be specifically equipped with appropriate sensors and devices to provide science with new insights into atopic dermatitis or other skin diseases.
The research project is an R&D cooperation project of AiF Projekt GmbH, which is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy on the basis of a resolution of the German Bundestag and is part of the ‘Central Innovation Programme for SMEs’ (ZIM) programme.