Israel Healthcare & Medical Device Industry

NYU Comprehensive Epilepsy Center to test BioLert’s epilepsy alert device April 24, 2009

The NYU Comprehensive Epilepsy Center (CEC), the largest epilepsy center in the United States, announced a test and evaluation program of an epilepsy alert device at the NYC CEC facilities in New York City. The ‘Epilert’ hospital setup was developed by the Israeli start-up company, BioLert as a technology demonstration and evaluation system prior to launching a commercial product.

CEC of the New York University Medical Center took upon itself to evaluate epilepsy alert systems for the sake of providing a solution to parents and care givers in order to relieve them from 24/7 watch of epileptic patients and improving the quality of life of the patients and their families.

An estimated 2.5 million Americans and over 20 million people worldwide suffer from some form of epilepsy. Even under the care of neurologists and epileptologists, approximately one third of patients with epilepsy do not attain adequate seizure control, thus making their seizures intractable. Children and adults with intractable seizures need comprehensive monitoring.

The ‘EpiLert’ was selected by CEC based on its novel concept and initial tests that are on-going at Epilepsy Surgery Center of the Tel-Aviv Medical Center.

The ‘EpiLert’ hospital set-up consists of a wrist worn movement sensor unit that transmits the movements’ signals to a radio communication stick connected to a laptop’s USB port. The computer records and processes the signal and while recording the system performs real time digital signal analysis. When epilepsy type seizures are identified, generally within 15 to 30 seconds after seizures onset, a sound alert is generated by the computer. System status and other monitored parameters are presented on the computer’s screen.

Movement events that are identified by the ‘EpiLert’ as epilepsy seizures are automatically marked on the recording for further verification and comparison to the Video and EEG data that are generated and recorded by the hospital monitoring system. Likewise, Video and EEG recorded data that is diagnosed as an epilepsy event is compared to the EpiLert recordings for the sake of improvements of the epilepsy seizures identification algorithms.

In its commercial configuration the ‘EpiLert’ will consist of an approximately one inch disc shaped sensor unit that can be mounted under a regular watch. In its outdoors version the alert will be radiod to caregivers or emergency services via the cellular network, along with location information (GPS).

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