A European digital health project that develops new tools to help patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and multiple sclerosis

BRAINTEASER mid-term workshop took place on 28 February 2023 in the prestigious location of the University of Padua Botanical Garden, Italy and was attended by almost 80 participants.

The organization of the event came at the end of the first phase of the project and served as the basis for the launch of the second phase or ‘pilot phase’, which focuses on transforming the current approach to health from a reactive to a predictive system focused on risk forecast, patient stratification and prognosis.

The workshop was opened by Professor Barbara Di Camillo of the University of Padua (IT), who also holds the role of scientific coordinator of the BRAINTEASER project. After a brief introduction about the project’s design, aims, methodology and field of application, the floor was left to two institutional representatives who invited the audience to a reflection on the importance of the scientific research and its benefits for the society as a whole.

In particular, Dr. Fabrizio Cobis, Director of Office II « Incentives and support for the competitiveness of the private production system and public/private cooperation at national level» – Directorate-General for Research, Italian Ministry for University and Research, gave a glance on the Mission 6 of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan devoted to the Health sector, with a view to identifying the opportunities that arise from it and the related strategic lines of use of the funds envisaged by the Next Generation EU Programme. During his presentation, he particularly stressed how research is essential for advancement and progress in almost any field of human endeavor.

In his intervention, Prof. Fabio Zwirner, Prorector for Research at the University of Padua, has underlined the University of Padua’s commitment in the EU and international collaborative research and how much the University perceives the importance of an open science approach to innovation.

The BRAINTEASER EU project’s officer, Prof. Claudia Prettner, who joined the workshop remotely, contextualized the work ongoing in the BRAINTEASER project in the framework of the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA) mission and actions. During her presentation, she underlined the importance of collaborative and transformative research as well as cross-fertilisation between projects and initiatives that insist on the same scope to strengthen Europe’s capacity to become healthier, more resilient, equitable and competitive.

After this introductory session, the workshop got to the heart of the project’s activities, giving way to presentations of the clinical approach promoted by BRAINTEASER and of the supporting technological applications.

The BRAINTEASER clinical perspective and pilots’ action was introduced to the audience by two leading clinicians’ part of the project’s consortium. Main take away messages from Prof. Mamede de Carvalho, Group leader at the Instituto De Medicina Molecular João Lobo Antunes – iMM (PT), and Prof. Adriano Chiò, University of Turin full professor of neurology and Director of Neurology 1 at the Molinette hospital of the City of Health in Torin (IT), have been, respectively.

Vladimir Urošević, Research & Development Manager at Belit Ltd. Belgrade (SR), and Sergio Gonzalez, researcher at Life Supporting Technologies Group (LifeSTech) in Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (SP), presented the two main BRAINTEASER technological instruments conceived to improve care and assistance services for the benefit of the various players in the health system.

Both tools, a web platform, for healthcare professionals, and a mobile application (app) for patients and those who assist them, vary according to the needs of patients and the type of disease they are suffering from.

The web platform hosts clinical tools that healthcare professionals can use, especially for patient management and routine visits. The tools collect data on the health status of patients and support professionals through alerts and notifications. Doctors can view patient-reported data on their mobile phone and suggest new activities or schedule visits.

The app, that has been presented with a live demo, aims to help patients and caregivers to report symptoms to the doctor, receive notifications, read educational content, participate in recommended activities for the promotion of general well-being. Each interaction is personalized based on the patient’s symptoms and status. This means that patients and caregivers can receive different types of information and advice, tailored to their specific needs.

After a lively session dedicated to Q&A, the workshop has been closed by Prof. Di Camillo.

The next goal of the project is to learn from the information that will emerge from the pilot sites that are currently using the app and web platform (four hospitals in three different European countries) to improve these support and assistance tools.

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BRAINTEASER is a project that the European Brain Council is part of. It is funded by the European Horizon 2020 program, which intends to exploit the value of clinical data, completely anonymized and integrated with personal and environmental data collected through smartwatches and low-cost environmental sensors. BRAINTEASER uses this data to develop clinical software and mobile applications to support patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and multiple sclerosis (MS), their clinicians and families.

BRAINTEASER is a data science project, which the European Brain Council is part of, employs AI-based clinical software and mobile apps to support patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and multiple sclerosis, their clinicians and families.

We have developed a prototype app-based solution with the aim of bridging the gap between hospital- and home-care. Through the app, the patients can send data and questions to the clinicians and receive help and suggestions.

We are also integrating wearable app sensor data collected through smart watches and air-quality data collected through wearable sensors. The first, together with the patient input, helps clinicians determine the patient status. The second is useful to study the possible impact of the environment on disease exacerbation.

We have adopted an open-science paradigm. We respect patient data confidentiality and ownership (data are fully anonymous), and, at the same time, challenge the scientific community to compare, discuss and openly publish their systems and solutions, including those developed by BRAINTEASER.

We have already organised a first open evaluation challenge in September 2022 with the aim of predicting disease prognosis in ALS, and the following is coming in Fall 2023, when we will discuss analogous AI solutions for MS and the possible impact of the environment.

These AI models will be then used to give integrated and augmented information to the clinicians, improving prognostication and intervention timing in routine clinical practice.

As the project has reached the halfway stage, on the 28th February 2023 the Consortium has planned its mid-term workshop.

The organisation of this event comes at the end of the first phase of the project and will serve as a basis to launch the second phase or “pilot phase” that will focus on transforming the current health approach from a reactive to a predictive system focused on risk prediction, patient stratification and prognosis.

The workshop will also serve as a place for reflection on the importance of transformative research, with a view to identifying the opportunities that arise from the National Plan for Recovery and Resilience and the related strategic lines of use of the funds envisaged by the Next Generation EU Programme.

The event, which can be also attended online, will be held in the prestigious location of the University of Padua Botanical Garden, Italy.

The BRAINTEASER Mid Term Workshop Full Programme can be accessed here.

You can register here to join the event online, but if you wish to join us in presence please click here!