A smartphone to beat COVID-19? Mon4t offers telemed testing options
By using the 3D accelerometers and gyroscopes already inside the smartphone, patients are able to provide their healthcare providers real-time high-quality data from home.
By HAGAY HACOHENUpdated: DECEMBER 16, 2020 10:27The Mon4t telemedicine app.(photo credit: Courtesy)
By using AI and the capabilities of smartphones, Montfort is now able to offer a telemed solution to patients recovering from COVID-19 or suffering from a range of other diseases such as Parkinson's or Huntington’s disease in Brazil, Italy and Hong Kong. Many people are able to survive the novel coronavirus, but recovery is at times slow and there are some neurological symptoms that last a while. In most hospitals, doctors are asked to follow established protocols to determine the state of the patient.In Parkinson’s and Huntington’s disease, where the damage takes a long time to manifest, the doctor asks the patient to fulfil a task such as holding a hand in the air or walking in a straight line. Due to COVID-19, many elderly and ill patients are unable to meet with their doctors in person, which hampers their chances of getting the help they need. What we did, explains Mon4t co-founder and CEO Dr. Ziv Yekutieli, is “offer the medical doctor a digital toolbox so he could do all the checks he normally does in the clinic. This was the first step, even before the telemed aspect.” Doctors might err with their human eyes, but by using the 3D accelerometers and gyroscopes already inside the smartphone, patients are able to provide their healthcare providers real-time high-quality data. By holding their phones close to their chest and walking, or by holding the phones flat on the stretched-out palm of their hand, patients can create superior data for their healthcare provider to monitor.“Many patients don’t want to interrupt their lives,” Yekutieli told The Jerusalem Post. “If they wish, the phones could gather such data passively while the users go about their everyday lives. Some diseases take a long time to get diagnosed; instead of “wasting” everyone’s time by showing up for pre-arranged check-ups which may not be needed, we are able to alert the health service if the patient's condition changes.” FDA approved and winner of the 2018 Henry Ford Health System’s AI challenge in Israel, the solution is now offered in Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre Brazil, Queen Mary hospital in Hong Kong and Campus Bio-Medico di Roma in Italy. The movement-based solution is only one aspect: Phones also have touch screens.“In most hospitals they still use cards for the Flanker Test and other cognitive checkups, or at best a computer,” Yekutieli told the Post, “we developed a smartphone version for them.” He stresses that his company is making well-known established procedures digitally accessible, which is partly why the medical professions are happy to embrace their services. “We want to offer the doctor precise and objective data,” he explained, noting that such subjective questions as “are you experiencing memory loss?” are tricky by default. “Here, there is no paper-work to fill out. The app offers visual instructions so users can easily learn how to do these examinations at home.”
The app has two versions, one to be used by the medical doctor, and one to be used by the patients in their homes or wherever they might be. The data it collects is meant to be used by the healthcare provider alongside brain scans and other means, helping users survive the pandemic in the best possible health.
