Use of HUME for identification and regulation of pain

Soziale Dienste, an Austrian home care institution, offers support to people with a complex care demand at home. One of her clients, a middle-aged woman, suffered from severe pain attacks that could take place throughout the day. Due to these pain attacks, she was also unable to work. Soziale Dienste has used the HUME to gain insight into her pain experience, ultimately to reduce pain and to increase the quality of life.

 

HUME is a smart sensor system from Mentech. The HUME determines the stress level based on measured physiological characteristics (heart rate, skin conductance and activity) and trained Artificial Intelligence models. The physiology is measured using wearables such as a chest strap, patch or smart sock. The stress indication is displayed on the tablet or smartphone as a traffic light or as a stress history. The HUME gives the client or care worker an early warning of stress development or allows them to investigate the causes of stress through a diagnostic application, and ultimately remove these causes.

 

Carina Wartbüchler, consultant of Soziale Dienste, explains: ‘Through the use of the HUME, the client received in-time signals of pain attacks on which she took preventive medication. Due to this timely intake of her pain medication, the attacks were less severe, and she was able to better regulate her pain. The client explains: ‘The HUME gave me insight into the development of a pain attack. Usually, I noticed a pain attack much too late, so I had to take a high dose of medication and also had to recover for a long time. Due to the timely signaling of a pain attack, I got a better grip on pain and needed less medication.’

 

Based on these experiences, Soziale Dienste has decided to use a new sleep medication to better regulate the pain. The use of this medication led to a reduction in pain attacks at night and to an increase in sleep quality. The effectiveness of this new drug has also been recorded by the HUME as a structural reduction of the measured stress level.