THE CHALLENGE
Epilepsy is an unpredictable disorder, and there are unmet needs for seizure monitoring and alerting. Logging seizures is essential to the patient and physician relationship and treatment, but the traditional way of logging seizures – paper and pencil – is inefficient and inaccurate. Providers and their patients are looking for better ways to alert caregivers when a seizure is about to occur. These needs led to the creation of the EpiWatch research study at Johns Hopkins. The Technology Innovation Center’s challenge was to design and develop an app (integrated with the Apple Watch) that collects important seizure data, allowing for researchers to deploy an algorithm for detecting seizures before they occur.
THE OUTCOME
The Technology Innovation Center design and development team began working with the EpiWatch team after the initial version of the app was created. The app currently tracks seizure data after a seizure occurs and allows for overnight tracking of seizures. There are over 600 users signed up for the study who regularly contribute seizure data. The next version of the app, currently in development, will include seizure detection that alerts a patient or caregiver before the seizure occurs.
