by Mark Lehmkuhle, PhD, CEO/CTO, Founder of Epitel
Innovative technology for remote monitoring of some chronic conditions has sped light years ahead of the way patients used to log and track their disease in the early 20th century, and even as recently as a decade ago. From then until today, innovations in monitoring devices have become more compact and portable for the treatment of many conditions. For example, in the treatment of high blood pressure, patients can now use at-home wearable inflatable arm cuffs that calculate heart rate and blood flow and measure changes in artery motion.
When it comes to brain health, however, EEG remote brain monitoring technologies have not yet quite caught up.
Conversely, the market for remote monitoring is on a rapid growth trajectory. According to a recent study by Aritzon Advisory and Intelligence, the U.S. remote patient monitoring market is expected to reach USD 25.28 billion by 2028 from USD 13.40 billion in 2022, growing at a CAGR of 11.16% during the forecast period.
The evolution of remote monitoring
In 2014, scientists at Brown University unveiled very low-power sensors that allowed monitored subjects, who were dependent on a transmitter, a four-antenna receiver the size of a WiFi router and signal processing to carry on with their usual lifestyle versus being tethered to cables. No one can refute that great strides have been made in the last few decades.
Up until recently, however, many of the latest neurotechnology developments to improve the lives of patients were thought to be more in the realm of science fiction than in the world of possibility.
Thankfully, the speed at which new advancements in neurotechnology are entering the real world has accelerated at a rapid pace with a greater number of research studies, funding, and resources needed to bring them to fruition for individual patients.
For example, the Epilepsy Monitoring Unit (EMU) at Penn Medicine uses both the advancing fields of invasive neurophysiology and neuroimaging to better localize epileptic networks in medication-refractory epilepsy patients to ensure the most effective therapies are assigned to individual patients.
At the same time, when it comes to reducing administrative and family burden while delivering continuous improvement in patient outcomes, remote monitoring for neurological conditions such as epilepsy and other seizure disorders is one area that is just now being advanced.
This is surprising when you consider that for many conditions including Epilepsy, which affects 70 million people worldwide, the standard monitoring and treatment protocols still generally involve travel to a health center, often located far away from one’s home, and usage of traditional monitoring units.
Such visits are often time-intensive and costly, and patients find themselves restricted in movement by EEG systems that are largely cumbersome. Stays at health centers with EMUs also sometimes require patients to be taken off their medications with the intent to record seizures, undoubtedly causing them significant stress. It’s understandable why it’s not uncommon for some to feel overwhelmed and walk out on the process. Many may not even experience electrographic seizure activity during their limited stay.
Advancements in Remote Monitoring
While wired ambulatory EEGs can be used in a home environment, they still bring with them substantial limitations.
- A trained EEG technician must be on hand to position and glue the EEG to a patient’s scalp,
- The long, wired tethers create motion artifacts in the EEG record, especially during convulsive seizures and other movements,
- The bulky system can be restrictive, preventing patients from routine daily activities,
- Systems are often cumbersome and, if worn out in public, they can feel socially stigmatizing.
Recent innovations, allowing patients to conveniently monitor seizures and other chronic neurological conditions from home, can offer a new level of relief. Thankfully, cloud-based wearable sensors are now available to help patients better monitor seizures. Patients who wear the sensors for a specific prescribed duration experience minimal mobility restrictions in their normal daily lives.
Such a discreet, wireless, easily applied, wearable EEG system has the potential to make home EEG recording more widely available, less restrictive, and provide EEG capabilities with no wired tether artifacts that can obscure the electrographic seizure activity.
Cloud-based EEG Monitoring Technologies
Remote monitoring technologies overall can enhance access to data, ensure greater safety and deliver better outcomes for patients. At the same time, they can empower healthcare professionals to be better informed in providing treatment decisions.
EEG data from wireless, wearable sensors can also be directly accessible in near real-time through a HIPAA-compliant database. This data can provide comprehensive spatial EEG recordings that can be administered by non-specialized medical personnel in any medical center, thus reducing administrative burden for healthcare organizations overall.
Innovations in remote monitoring for neurological conditions are making a difference for patients, providers, and healthcare organizations alike. Cloud-based remote monitoring is still in its infancy and further research, experience, policy considerations, and regulatory reviews and authorizations certainly are needed. But the future will soon be here, whereby remote monitoring will offer a new model of care, creating more accessibility and eligibility across a greater number of patients.