FrailSafe’s final conference took place at the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) house in Brussels on the 3 April 2019 and brought together researchers, industry, policy makers, health professionals and end users to show-case the results and benefits of the EU funded project.
FrailSafe’s final conference took place at the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) house in Brussels on the 3 April 2019 and brought together researchers, industry, policy makers, health professionals and end users to show-case the results and benefits of the EU funded project.
The population over 80 years is the most growing and most heterogeneous population and many people in this group develop frailty, loss of function and intrinsic capacity. FrailSafe is trying to address these issues by going from a reactive to a proactive/preventive medicine,
FrailSafe uses multiple devices and different parameters to feed the data analytics model that ends up providing a decision support mechanism. Even with a few measurements, the FrailSafe system is good enough to give accurate prediction of adverse events – for example using the smart garment and the games, an accuracy of nearly 70% is reached, which is more accurate than just the clinical assessment.
Marina Kotsani, CHRU Nancy, INSERM Est, described the organisation of clinical studies within FrailSafe in detail and showed that the system provides quick and accurate information for frailty evaluation, can predict hard outcomes and provides an opportunity for preventive strategies.
Roberto Orselli, Smartex, showcased the smart vest that collects the FrailSafe data, can be worn every day and washed easily – it also currently seeks medical device certification. Respecting the user-centred approach, Smartex made sure to include end-users’ feedback and improve the prototype. For example, a zipper was added to facilitate wearability.
Another device used in the FrailSafe project is the collection of games that focus on cognitive skills such as inhibition, problem solving or decision making and physical skills such as strength and endurance to prevent frailty, all while providing a fun activity.
Ilias Kalamaras, CERTH/ITI, presented the FrailSafe system’s dashboard that provides tailored information to older persons to monitoring their status, clinicians to provide interventions and researchers for visual data analysis – the level of accessibility varying according to the stakeholder.
Marina Polycarpou from Materia Group, shared the overwhelmingly positive feedback of older adults, Health Care Professionals, informal caregivers, IT professionals, commercial stakeholders etc. gathered during the evaluation of the system.
Finally, Kosmas Petridis, Hypertech (KP), highlighted the specific benefits various stakeholders can gain from the solution – be it healthcare organisations that get a proactive diagnostic tool or the pharmaceutical industry that gets more reliable results during studies, or policy makers that can use past records to calculate and design future policies – all in all, FrailSafe has something to offer for a plurality of stakeholders.
For more information about the conference and presentations go to:
https://frailsafe-project.eu/news/129-final-conference-report