About the project

Novel solutions to a growing health concern

Early stage detection is critical to halting the rise in cardiovascular diseases. Within MEDICAID (Medtech solutions for Earlier DetectIon of CArdIovascular Disease), ten PhD students and one postdoc are therefore working on unobtrusive sensing, monitoring and data analysis for earlier recognition and improved treatment. The general approach is to co-develop novel technological solutions in a controlled clinical environment and to subsequently refine and validate them in extramural and at-home settings. As a collaboration between e/MTIC and Eindhoven Engine, project members meet daily at e/MTIC locations while project management meetings and events are co-located within Eindhoven Engine’s Diruptor building at the TU/e Campus.

Five aspects to innovation

The project consists of five work packages (WP):

1. Early recognition of Atrial Fibrillation and Heart Failure
2. Comorbid OSA and Insomnia: cardiovascular-based diagnosis and phenotyping
3. Early detection of preeclampsia
4. Diagnosis and management of Atrial Fibrillation compounded by Obstructive Sleep Apnea
5. Automated analysis of abdominal aortic aneurisms by means of ultrasound

Various methodologies will be utilized over the project’s five-year duration. In WP1, for instance, a database of 27,000 patients is being analyzed in a comparison of traditional analysis, deep learning predictions and machine learning techniques. In WP4, an algorithm for automatic electrocardiogram analysis is being developed, while two systematic reviews on heart rate variability and speckle tracking echocardiography for hypertensive disorders in pregnancy have been submitted for WP5. The subsequent deployment of these innovations and more will increase healthcare effectiveness at lower costs while offering higher patient quality of life.

About the project

Epilepsy affects roughly 120,000 patients in the Netherlands, making it the most common neurological disorder. In addition to seizures, it may cause cognitive problems and psychological complaints, putting a heavy burden on individual health, quality of life and society. As seizures are often hard to treat using traditional methods (30% of patients still experience them while on medication), a promising alternative is neurostimulation.

About the project

Of all mental disorders, depression is by far the most common, and about 15-20% of all patients end up in chronic depression. The costs of depression (direct and indirect) amount to three billion euros per year in the Netherlands alone. In order to reduce this burden of disease and the associated costs, there is an urgent need for objective diagnostic techniques, because the current diagnosis, based on subjective psychiatric tests, falls far short of being reliable.

The aim of this project is to arrive at a reliable objective diagnostic technique based on functional MRI scans of the patient, and ultimately to apply these in decision support systems for diagnosis, patient stratification and therapy selection. This can significantly reduce the burden of disease and costs, and can also create an important new market for MRI scanners.

About the project

Without changes to healthcare, heart disease may overwhelm the system within 10 to 20 years. SoSTRAP, one of Eindhoven Engine’s four OpenCall 2019 projects, aims to develop a solution: a data collection and diagnosis platform which supports behavioral changes in cardiac patients through social connectedness. This complements the NWO-funded project NWO-STRAP, which looks at AI techniques for the early prediction of heart failure deterioration. The joint aim of these projects is lower treatment costs for cardiac patients and improved cardiac care.

Combining the sources

“Suppose that somebody has had heart failure and is monitoring their condition,” says Panos Markopoulos, coordinator of So-STRAP and TU/e Professor of Design for Behavior Change. “If things get worse, one treatment is diuretics to relieve fluid congestion. Using AI, we want to see if it’s time to administer that. This is one clinical trial of the NWO project. The second looks at people who haven’t got heart disease but absorb resources by visiting the cardiology clinic for a check. Could we have good data collection at home to make their visit more efficient or handle things without a visit? These two focuses aim to improve ‘pain points’ in current cardiac care.”

As So-STRAP is working on social media within this monitoring of patients, the ambition is for both projects to become one. “Eventually,” explains Panos, “we will add social media to the various sources of data used for monitoring, such as medical instruments and IoT devices. I hope that the projects will be integrated and that our PhD students will be able to work with a whole group of people in the NWO project.”

Knowledge across disciplines

So-STRAP is needs-driven, having been started by cardiologist Eelko Ronner of Reiner de Graaf hospital on the basis of his practical experience. It also recognizes the need to involve a network of technology suppliers, which are mostly SMEs such as Cardiron, HeartSciences and Onmi. “We build on their high expertise, such as on electrocardiophy, secure data storage and transmission and gamification. This will help us provide innovative solutions that we otherwise couldn’t,” Panos notes.

This is also a crucial advantage of co-location, which allows PhD students to access knowledge from across the university. For a broad initiative like So-STRAP – which brings together electrical engineering, computer science, industrial design, data science and medicine – it also creates a better atmosphere. “You want your researchers to have an environment where they can meet peers and feel comfortable,” says Panos. “I’m hoping that the electrical engineer will meet other electrical engineers, for example. The interdisciplinary nature of the project will be helped by multidisciplinary co-location. We also hope to get synergy with similar projects involving other societal partners and experts within TU/e and the broader Brainport region.”

“From the perspective of industrial design, I hope that we can transform our field a bit. The emphasis is moving to AI and we need to learn how to deal with this. But the societal impact can also be very big: the design of a decision-making tool can be a first step towards the integration of IoT and AI techniques in daily life.”

About the project

Human-centric lighting should benefit users, but the practicality of this is no clear-cut process. Light affects human health and wellbeing in many ways, and needs/preferences vary according to time of day, task or company, and the pressing need to save energy. Building on the latest insights into new light sources, Internet of Things and how lighting impacts human functioning, the project takes an integrative approach to developing algorithms to infer and even predict user context to accommodate user needs and preferences as well as innovative lighting and new design methodologies that allow optical designs which promote optimal efficiency, higher optical quality and better utilization.

About the project

Towards an artificial womb

Following their birth, each child faces a physiological transition from mother-placental life support to (self-sufficient) life outside the womb. For some premature babies, this transition occurs too quickly. This places a heavy demand on the child’s immature vital organs, which is why extremely premature babies often experience serious, lifelong health problems with possible social consequences. As a trial in recent years, premature lambs have successfully been kept alive in a fluid-based environment, allowing them to develop in the same way as in the womb. The results are also promising for human application. The Perinatal Life Support consortium will develop a medical device – an artificial womb – that supports the safe development of extremely premature babies outside of the womb. Ultimately, these infants will have better health prospects than premature infants with conventional care.

About the project

FITTing Persons’ vitality and optimizing their Work Environment

In an increasingly competitive global economy, physical inactivity and burnout rates are increasing. Sustainable employability based on good physical and mental health is therefore crucial, preventing absenteeism and also reducing healthcare costs. POWEr FITTing optimizes the relationship between vitality and the (home) office environment through the combination of data acquisition, integration and application for the validation and acceleration of user-oriented solutions. By taking into account individual, societal and contextual factors, this enables employees to remain both healthy and productive. This benefits companies, individuals and wider society.

About the project

Unlocking mechanical limitations of synthetic heart stents with auxetic, fiber tubular scaffolds.

In the fight against cardiovascular disease, stents and grafts are implanted in patients to support or repair damaged or high-risk vessels. These stents and grafts provide robust mechanical support, but do not provide tissue repair. It would be better if such implants actively promoted tissue repair and regeneration over time.

The AUXSTENT project addresses these challenges and is already working on 3D-printable and bioresorbable stents that encourage and stimulate regeneration. At Eindhoven Engine, AUXSTENT will take the next step: developing a functional prototype. In this project, the focus is on combining the functional design of these stents with available engineering and materials knowledge.

About the project

Currently, there are 55 million people worldwide with dementia. This number is expected to rise to 78 million by 2030 and 138 million by 2050 according to the WHO. There is currently no medical solution for dementia. In addition, there is a shortage of caregivers. This is putting the healthcare system under pressure. Technology should and can provide the support needed for dementia sufferers and their caregivers.

Warm technology

The WECARE project focuses on extending human care by applying the Warm Technology concept to interactive agents, such as chatbots and companion robots. Warm Technology ensures that this technology is made accessible and appropriate for the environment of people with dementia and their caregivers, thereby also taking this environment into account. In this project, work is being done to develop more advanced behaviors and representations in interactive agents.