Method and system for allowing a neurologically diseased patient to self-monitor the patient's actual state

• US 7,890,340 B2
• Filed: 12/20/2000
• Issued: 02/15/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 12/20/1999
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Siemens Healthcare GMBH (Siemens AG)
• Original Assignee: Siemens AG
• Inventors: Abraham-Fuchs, Klaus, Schmidt, Kai-Uwe
• Primary Examiner(s): Frenel; Vanel
• Application Number:
  US09/742,268
• Publication Number:
  US 20040073452A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,709 Days
• Field of Search: 705 2- 3, 128/899, 128/630, 600/25, 340/384.1
• US Class Current: 705/2
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0002 Remote monitoring of patients using telemetry, e.g. transmission of vital signals via a communication network A61B5/07 takes precedence; transmission systems for measured values G08C; transmission H04B; transmission of digital information H04L; wireless communication networks H04W
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/16 Devices for psychotechnics using teaching or educational appliances G09B1/00 - G09B7/00; Testing reaction times ; Devices for evaluating the psychological state
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/4094 Diagnosing or monitoring seizure diseases, e.g. epilepsy
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7264 Classification of physiological signals or data, e.g. using neural networks, statistical classifiers, expert systems or fuzzy systems neural networks per se G06N3/00; expert systems per se G06N5/00
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 20/10 relating to drugs or medications, e.g. for ensuring correct administration to patients
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 20/70 relating to mental therapies, e.g. psychological therapy or autogenous training
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/20 for computer-aided diagnosis, e.g. based on medical expert systems

Abstract

In a method for allowing a patient suffering from a neurological disease and being treated with medication to self-monitor his or her current state, information regarding the motor functions and/or verbal and/or cognitive abilities of the patient are interactively acquired upon using a computer located for easy and repeated access by the patient, and at least one criterion number or a statement describing the state is determined on the basis of this information by an expert system at the computer and is made available to the patient by an output device at the computer.

Claims

1. A method for allowing a patient, suffering from a neurological disease and receiving medication for said disease, to self-monitor the patient'"'"'s actual state, comprising the steps of:

providing a computer at a location readily accessible to a patient substantially on a daily basis for acquiring information from a patient;

acquiring information, via an interactive procedure, from a patient wherein the acquired information is selected from a group consisting of information characterizing a motor function of the patient, information characterizing a verbal communication ability of the patient, and information characterizing cognitive abilities of the patient;

providing an expert system accessible by the computer;

providing said acquired patient information to said expert system for processing thereby, and determining, from the acquired information, at least one quantified indicator describing the state of the patient suffering from a neurological disease which is treated with medication; and

providing said computer with an output device and making said quantified indicator available to the patient via said output device wherein said information comprises information characterizing a motor function of said patient, and wherein the step of acquiring information comprises conducting software-controlled motor function exercises for quantifying at least one of neutral, negative and positive effects of said medication on said patient'"'"'s state, and quantifying said negative and positive effects for processing by said expert system for use in determining said quantified indicator.

2. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein said information is information characterizing a verbal communication ability of said patient, and wherein the step of acquiring information comprises acoustically acquiring speech from said patient and assessing said speech with a speech assessment system having speech recognition algorithms and a phonetic data bank to obtain an information value quantifying at least one of neutral, negative and positive effects of said medication on said speech, and supplying said information value to said expert system for processing by said expert system for use in determining said quantified indicator.

3. A method as claimed in claim 1 comprising the step of entering additional information characterizing a subjective state of health of said patient during said step of acquiring information.

4. A method as claimed in claim 1 further comprising the step of obtaining a quantified information value representing said information acquired in said, step of acquiring and storing, after each interactive procedure, as stored information with respect to time, at least one of said quantified indicator, said acquired information and said quantified information value.

5. A method as claimed in claim 4 comprising providing said stored information to said expert system for producing an evaluation regarding dosage of said medication based on said stored information and making said evaluation available to the patient at said output device.

6. A method as claimed in claim 5 wherein said stored information includes said quantified indicator, and wherein said expert system produces said evaluation from a chronological analysis of a curve relative to time of the respective quantified indicators obtained after each interactive procedure.

7. A method as claimed in claim 6 further comprising the step of establishing communication between said computer and a physician located remote from said computer, and informing said physician of at least one of said quantified indicator, and said evaluation and said information, as transmitted information.

8. A method as claimed in claim 7 further comprising the step of transmitting therapy instructions from said physician to said computer based on an examination of said transmitted information, and making said therapy instructions available to the patient at said output device.

9. A method as claimed in claim 5 further comprising the step of making the chronological curve available to said patient as a displayed curve at said output device.

10. A method as claimed in claim 5 further comprising the step of storing said produced evaluation in a memory accessible by said computer.

11. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein said step of determining further comprises formulating said quantified indicator as a number.

12. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein said step of determining further comprises formulating said quantified indicator as a statement.

13. A method for allowing a patient, suffering from a neurological disease and receiving medication for said disease, to self-monitor the patient'"'"'s actual state, comprising the steps of:

providing a computer at a location readily accessible to a patient substantially on a daily basis for acquiring information from a patient;

acquiring information, via an interactive procedure from a patient wherein the acquired information is selected from a group consisting of information characterizing a motor function of the patient, information characterizing a verbal communication ability of the patient, and information characterizing cognitive abilities of the patient;

providing an expert system accessible by the computer;

providing said acquired patient information to said expert system for processing thereby, and determining, from the acquired information, at least one quantified indicator describing the state of the patient suffering from a neurological disease which is treated with medication; and

providing said computer with an output device and making said quantified indicator available to the patient via said output device wherein the step of acquiring information comprises generating questions requiring a response from said patient to the respective questions and, from said responses, generating an information value quantifying at least one of neutral, negative and positive effects of said medication on said cognitive abilities of the patient, and supplying said information value to said expert system for processing for use in determining said quantified indicator.

14. A method as claimed in claim 13 comprising the step of acoustically entering said responses from said patient into said computer.

15. A method as claimed in claim 13 comprising the step of manually entering said responses from said patient into said computer.

16. A system for allowing a patient suffering from a neurological disease and receiving medication for treating said disease, to self-monitor a state of the patient, comprising:

a computer readily accessible by the patient disposed at a location at which said patient is present substantially on a daily basis;

at least one software program installed in said computer able to execute an interactive procedure with said patient to obtain information selected from the group consisting of information characterizing a motor function of the patient, information characterizing verbal communication abilities of the patient, and information characterizing cognitive abilities of the patient;

an input unit connected to said computer for use by said patient during said interactive procedure for acquiring said information;

an expert system accessible by said computer able to receive said information and produce a quantified indicator from said information and making said quantified indicator available to said computer; and

an output unit connected to said computer for providing said quantified indicator to the patient wherein said information is information characterizing verbal communication abilities of the patient, and wherein said input unit is an acoustical input unit, and wherein said software program assesses speech made by said patient into said input unit using speech algorithms and a phonetic data bank, and produces a quantified information value representing said verbal communication abilities, and makes said quantified information value available to said expert system.

17. A system as claimed in claim 16 wherein said information is information characterizing a motor function of the patient, and wherein said input unit is a manually operated input unit, and wherein said software program operates said computer to execute motor function test exercises and produces a quantified information value quantifying at least one of neutral, negative and positive effects of said medication on said motor function and makes said quantified information value available to said expert system.

18. A system as claimed in claim 16 wherein said information is information characterizing cognitive abilities of the patient and wherein said software operates said computer to present questions to said patient and to receive responses from said patient, and produces a quantified information value from said responses quantifying at least one of neutral, negative and positive effects of said medication on said cognitive abilities, and makes said quantified information value available to said expert system.

19. A system as claimed in claim 16 comprising a further software program for operating said computer to obtain additional information from said patient characterizing a subjective state of health of said patient.

20. A system as claimed in claim 16 wherein said software program in each interactive procedure produces a quantified information value from said information, and further comprising a memory accessible by said computer and by said expert system for storing, as stored information relative to time, at least one of said quantified indicator, said information and said quantified information value after each interactive procedure.

21. A system as claimed in claim 16 wherein said software operates said computer to formulate said quantified indicator as a number.

22. A system as claimed in claim 16 wherein said software operates said computer to formulate said quantified indicator as a statement.

23. A system for allowing a patient suffering from a neurological disease and receiving medication for treating said disease, to self-monitor a state of the patient, comprising:

a computer readily accessible by the patient disposed at a location at which said patient is present substantially on a daily basis;

at least one software program installed in said computer able to execute an interactive procedure with said patient to obtain information selected from the group consisting of information characterizing a motor function of the patient, information characterizing verbal communication abilities of the patient, and information characterizing cognitive abilities of the patient;

an input unit connected to said computer for use by said patient during said interactive procedure for acquiring said information;

an expert system accessible by said computer able to receive said information and produce a quantified indicator from said information and making said quantified indicator available to said computer; and

an output unit connected to said computer for providing said quantified indicator to the patient wherein said software program in each interactive procedure produces a quantified information value from said information, and further comprising a memory accessible by said computer and by said expert system for storing, as stored information relative to time, at least one of said quantified indicator, said information and said quantified information value after each interactive procedure and said expert system produces an evaluation from said stored information with regard to a dosage of said medication.

24. A system as claimed in claim 23 wherein said stored information includes said quantified indicator, and wherein said expert system produces said evaluation by analyzing a chronological curve of respective quantified indicators obtained from successive interactive procedures.

25. A system as claimed in claim 24 wherein said computer provides said chronological curve to said output device as a displayed curve.

26. A system as claimed in claim 23 further comprising a transmission link from said computer to an external computer located remotely from said computer for transmitting at least one of said evaluation and said quantified indicator to said external computer.