NeuroTec Sitem-Insel Bern: Closing the Last Mile in Neurology

Abstract

Neurology is focused on a model where patients receive their care through repeated visits to clinics and doctor’s offices. Diagnostic tests often require expensive and specialized equipment that are only available in clinics. However, this current model has significant drawbacks. First, diagnostic tests, such as daytime EEG and sleep studies, occur under artificial conditions in the clinic, which may mask or wrongly emphasize clinically important features. Second, early detection and high-quality management of chronic neurological disorders require repeat measurements to accurately capture the dynamics of the disease process, which is impractical to execute in the clinic for economical and logistical reasons. Third, clinic visits remain inaccessible to many patients due to geographical and economical circumstances. Fourth, global disruptions to daily life, such as the one caused by COVID-19, can seriously harm patients if access to in-person clinical visits for diagnostic and treatment purposes is throttled. Thus, translating diagnostic and treatment procedures to patients’ homes will convey multiple substantial benefits and has the potential to substantially improve clinical outcomes while reducing cost. NeuroTec was founded to accelerate the re-imagining of neurology and to promote the convergence of technological, scientific, medical and societal processes. The goal is to identify and validate new digital biomarkers that can close the last mile in neurology by enabling the translation of personalized diagnostics and therapeutic interventions from the clinic to the patient’s home.

Contactless Gait Assessment in Home-like Environments

“…Both the experimental setup and the study purpose were described to the participants, and informed consent was obtained prior to participation. The study was conducted in a home-like instrumented apartment, the NeuroTec Loft [52] at the Swiss Institute for Translational and Entrepreneurial Medicine. In Figure 1, the layout of the living room and kitchen of the apartment is depicted.…”

On the relationships between epilepsy, sleep, and Alzheimer’s disease: A narrative review

“…3). The comparison with the only 99 results for a combination of all three terms however underlines the urgent need for liberation from silos of academic departments and from the constraints of established paradigms to strive for a more integrative perspective of neurodegeneration [101].…”

“…Additionally, more comprehensive scientific information about the effect of subclinical epileptiform activity and sleep changes, for example on cognition or the progression of neurodegeneration, could be obtained in a more objective way. As a supplement to sleep diagnostics by means of EEG, polysomnography should be mentioned above all, which ideally should also be used at home and can be supplemented by video recording [101].…”

The European Academy of Neurology Brain Health Strategy: One brain, one life, one approach

“…The unprecedented growth of digital technologies may not only improve the diagnosis, monitoring and treatment of neurological disorders (e.g., via 'teleneurological' approaches) but also promote efficient and cost-effective approaches to promote prevention on an individual basis and in the home environment [20,21].…”

“…The evidence available for efficient and cost-effective prevention [20,21], which is starting to be available for stroke and Alzheimer's disease and other dementias, is lacking for most of the remaining neurological disorders.…”