Startup Point Check promise to help people with dementia

Startup Point Check promise to help people with dementia

Budrigannews.com – Most of the time, you can tell someone about your pain. But that isn’t always an option for people who have trouble communicating, so pain often goes unnoticed, misinterpreted, or treated incorrectly.

An app that uses facial analysis and artificial intelligence (AI) to assess and score pain levels was developed by Australian startup PainChek to give a voice to those who are unable to report their suffering, such as people with dementia.

Using a smartphone, a caregiver takes a brief video of the patient’s face and responds to questions about their behavior, movements, and speech. An overall pain score is calculated by combining the caretaker’s observations with the AI’s recognition of pain-related facial muscle movements.

The company claims that PainChek can detect pain with an accuracy of over 90%, and more than 180,000 pain assessments have been performed on over 66,000 individuals worldwide. The app was made to be used with elderly people who need help.

Caretakers and medical professionals typically use a standardized scale, like the Abbey Pain Scale, to interpret the results of a patient’s behavior and facial expressions when assessing pain in dementia patients with severe communication impairment.

In 2012, a group of researchers from Curtin University in Western Australia’s pharmacy school began working on PainChek. They wanted a better alternative to subjective assessments on paper.

Peter Shergill, the director of business development at PainChek, provides the following explanation: “It’s very difficult for humans to decode the emotions of the person’s face.” Therefore, based on decades of research, the tool uses algorithms and artificial intelligence to decode the face.

The creators of PainChek conducted a validation study in 2017 and published the results in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. They found that the app provided reliable evidence of the presence of pain. In Europe, Australia, and Canada, the technology is regarded as a medical device. Care facilities can subscribe to it on a monthly basis for approximately $4 per resident.

Around 50 million people worldwide are thought to have dementia, and there are nearly 10 million new cases each year. According to a 2012 study, up to 80% of dementia residents in nursing homes regularly experience pain.

Shergill asserts, “Globally, the assessment of pain in people living with dementia is not strong.” When pain in people with dementia goes unnoticed or untreated, it can show up in difficult-to-control behaviors that people try to control with antipsychotic medication, which carries additional risks.

As part of a two-year trial, the Australian government gave up to 3.8 million dollars ($5 million) to care facilities in the country to adopt PainChek.

According to Richard Colbeck, the Federal Minister for Senior Australians and Aged Care Services, “it aims to improve the diagnosis and management of pain, as well as the quality of life and health outcomes for people living in residential care.”

According to PainChek, its technology is currently utilized in over 722 care facilities worldwide. It debuted in the United Kingdom in August of last year, where approximately 1,000 patients have utilized it thus far.

PainChek has been used by Paul Rowley, owner of a 24-bed residential home in the United Kingdom, for almost a year. He says that dementia has been diagnosed in 20 of his residents.

According to Rowley, “[Dementia patients] have difficulty communicating and may not necessarily be able to articulate what they are feeling.” As a result, “the caretaker often has to interpret their feelings.” He claims that the app is assisting caregivers in rapidly determining whether a patient is in pain.

Rowley regards PainChek as an essential tool for demonstrating that there is no pain. He gives an example of a situation in which he and his staff were able to use the app to stop a woman from taking too many drugs.

He continues, “We have one lady whose dementia is very advanced and was manifesting signs that would be interpreted by the majority of people as physical pain.” However, we used PainChek to demonstrate that we were convinced, based on our extensive knowledge of the woman, that what she was exhibiting was frustration and anxiety rather than pain.

A growing number of technologies aim to assist individuals of all backgrounds in communicating their pain. MoxyTech has created an app called GeoPain in the United States that lets users draw exactly where they are having pain on a 3D image of their body. AlgometRx is a portable instrument that measures pain by scanning a patient’s pupils.

PainChek also wants to create products for other groups. It has been conducting research at a Melbourne pediatric hospital to assist in the creation of an app that can identify pain in children under the age of three.

More Emotions of children can now ‘be read’

Shergill states, “We are looking at learning disability, delirium, and end of life, as well as additional additions.” We have a one-of-a-kind solution that can be used by people of all ethnicities and backgrounds; users can see the effect it is having.