This Startup is solving epilepsy with biosensors and AI

Actual title is Epilert, the finest epilepsy detection device.

This product says it detects (doesn't prevent) tonic-clonic seizures. Epilepsy covers such a wide array of conditions. Tonic-clonics are the type of seizure that people envision when they think about seizures (unconscious on the ground convulsing), but there are so many other types - absence seizures, for instance, result in a person appearing to just stare off into space. There are many products that aim to detect tonic-clonic seizures.

My almost 7 year old was diagnosed with a form of epilepsy at age 3.5. It's luckily mostly controlled at the moment with a 3:1 keto diet and a cocktail of drugs, but it's been a long few years. We've dealt with many, many tonic-clonics over those years, as well as other types. By far the most common for us (dozens or more per day at times) has been myoclonic seizures, resulting in a sudden jerk of some muscle. This might result suddenly dropping whatever you're grasping in your hand, or suddenly ending up with a wet shirt after the liquid you just drank falls back out of your mouth. But the worst by far have been the atonic seizures - complete loss of muscle tone and consciousness for a brief moment resulting in a standing person falling face-first in to the pavement with no protective reflexes. It's hard to describe the feeling of helplessness as a parent when this happens to your child.

Anyway, mostly venting. It's nice to see any acknowledgment of epilepsy in more general outlets. Not sure I'd consider this solving epilepsy, though.

I have epilepsy and while this is a far cry from solving it, I love to see more products in the space.

A device that is closer to 'solving' (focal) epilepsy is Neuropace, which uses electrodes around the seizure focus to detect a developing seizure and promptly deliver electrical stimulation to counteract it and prevent its progression before it becomes noticeable. It's been quite successful so far, leading to substantial seizure reduction and boosts in cognition (which is often reduced by anti-epileptic drugs and/or regular seizures).

The research team behind Neuropace has also used data from the devices to build seizure risk forecasting models for individuals (https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/12/419376/seizure-risk-foreca...).

Given the device is so much less intrusive than Neuropace, it would be exciting to see Epilert successfully do the same (which seems to be one of their goals). With good forecasting, some patients could potentially prevent seizures through modulation of medication alone. Though I'm not really their 'target patient' (I have well controlled TLE), I'd happily wear the device when at home to contribute data to an effort to pull that off.

without regards to the hubbub around "AI".

> Epilert contains a monitoring system that enables epileptic patients, their caregivers and doctors to monitor patients’ vital signs, daily lifestyle, medication taking and seizures through dedicated mobile apps.

I live with someone who has epilepsy. For adults, it's largely manageable with some medications. For my partner, this enables her to work and live mostly normally.

The biggest issue for her is having an early warning system. She is unable to obtain a drivers license, though she doesn't frequently convulse at random times. It's typically cyclical for her, and of the time I have known her, it's never been "unexpected". She usually knows before hand what's going on and lies down in bed, takes a secondary anti-convulesant medication and relaxes. Most of the time this - just works.

However, I would love for her to be able to drive, as it's a huge impediment for her being able to work places, or visit places. I don't especially like being a standby taxi driver.

If she could reliably get alerts from a monitoring device, I think she would be low risk for driving. The fear of the DMV is that she has a seizure on the highway and kills herself or someone else. With a good early warning system, she could pull over, or not drive that day or whatever.

Epilepsy is manageable but also can be very rough - it's a lifelong situation and is can be triggered by a sorts of things.

Anyway, just my two cents.

I have no experience of epilepsy, but I'd suggest (1) health conditions are not problems to be "solved", and (2) reducing complex systems to individual "soluble" components emphasises those components at the expense of the whole. In other words, someone living with epilepsy might have a whole ton of stuff going on in relation to the epilepsy.

Monitoring, alerting, etc etc are all (potentially) great, but they're at best necessary without being sufficient.

Not to rag on Epilert. Hopefully this is a step in the right direction. The language in the submitted title just seems inappropriate. (In case it changes, it was: "This Startup is solving epilepsy with biosensors and AI").

There have been many watches along these lines already, e.g. https://www.empatica.com/en-gb/embrace2/ although previous ones have mostly used motion sensing. This Epilert startup seems to be looking at motion and also other signals like heartbeat, skin temperature, electrodermal activity.

I have a close family member with severe epilepsy so I'm interested, but the usefulness of these devices comes down to reliability and minimising false alarms while also not missing any serious events, which is a very hard thing to get right.

However there's something a little odd about their slogan of "finest epilepsy detection device". I can imagine 'finest' used for chocolate or wine, but its an odd adjective for a medical device.

In a similar vein Belgian startup FibriCheck is doing the same thing for detecting atrial fibrillation.

Theranos alert.