UZ Brussel and the participating partners of the imec.icon ROBO-CURE research project use a social robot to improve the lives and therapy of children with diabetes

Today the participating partners of the imec.icon ROBO-CURE research project (UZ Brussel, Cronos, QBMT, Medtronic Belgium, imec, Ghent University and the VUB) presented a social robot that can autonomously offer better and more personalised care to patients with chronic diseases. The robot was first used to offer newly-diagnosed diabetes patients enhanced medical therapy.

A social robot for a more personalised approach

“A child that has been diagnosed with diabetes is inundated with information. At the same time, the child must also learn to correctly calculate how many carbohydrates are in a meal to be able to adjust the insulin dose accordingly. Learning how to correctly interpret the readings from portable devices (such as glucose sensors, insulin pumps and activity trackers…) is also vital for their therapy. This can be quite complicated”, says Professor Inge Gies of the Paediatric Diabetes Team of UZ Brussel. “Every diabetes patient also responds differently to therapy, which explains why an enhanced and personalised approach is crucial. That is why it is so important that the large amount of valuable data generated by these devices is processed quickly and efficiently, so we can adapt the treatment accordingly and based on the patient’s therapeutic needs. Patients mainly need additional support shortly after the diagnosis when they start to monitor their glucose and learn how to analyse all these data.”

Better monitoring of patients with chronic diseases

The participating partners of the imec.icon ROBO-CURE project consequently researched whether social robots can be used to better monitor, guide and inform patients with this chronic disease. Brecht Vermeulen, the project’s research manager and the technical lead for the test infrastructure at IDLab, an imec research group at Ghent University: “For the first time ever, we have successfully used social robots to autonomously educate and guide young diabetes patients over a longer period of time, with various scripts, for their treatment. The response of the children and their parents to the interactive robot was very positive. The robot has been fitted with sensors and IoT connectivity to detect, in a hospital setting, when a meal enters the room or to read out the data of a glucose sensor in real-time. It also uses modern machine learning techniques to recognise objects or detect daily patterns based on the collected data. It can be applied to enhance and personalise therapies, ensuring they can be adapted more quickly. The latter is especially vital during the first weeks after the patient diagnosis.”

The patients were introduced to their robot for the first time during their hospital stay after their diagnosis. Together with their family, they could spend up to 24 hours in HomeLab, a smart home (an initiative of imec and Ghent University). Besides the robot, there are plenty of other smart home applications and sensors in this home, including cameras, NFC tags on food, motion sensors on the fridge, cabinets and doors.

UZ Brussel aims to incorporate the robot in the daily operations of its diabetes clinic in the near future. “In an ulterior phase, we will examine how we can re-programme the robot so it can used for therapies for other chronic diseases – such as obesity. We will also look at how we can further optimise the robot, and how we can use multiple robots to provide support to more patients”, Professor Inge Gies concludes.

About the imec.icon research programme

The imec.icon research programme gathers multidisciplinary research teams of scientists and industrial partners to jointly develop digital solutions based on a specific need for innovation. The participating partners of the imec.icon ROBO-CURE research project are UZ Brussels, Cronos, QBMT, Medtronic Belgium, imec, Ghent University and the VUB. The ROBO-CURE project was funded by imec, Innoviris, and Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship.

About imec

Imec is a world-leading research and innovation hub in nanoelectronics and digital technology. The combination of our widely-acclaimed leadership in microchip technology and software and ICT expertise is what makes us unique. By leveraging our world-class infrastructure and global ecosystem of local and international partners across a multitude of industries, we create ground-breaking innovation in application domains such as healthcare, smart cities and mobility, logistics and manufacturing 4.0, energy and education.

As a trusted partner for companies, start-ups and universities, imec brings together more than 4,000 brilliant minds, of 97 different nationalities. Imec’s headquarters are in Leuven, Belgium, and it has distributed R&D groups at a number of Flemish universities, in the Netherlands, Taiwain and the US as well as offices in China, India and Japan. In 2018, imec’s revenue (P&L) totalled 583 million euros. Further information on imec can be found at www.imec-int.com.

Imec is a registered trademark for the activities of IMEC International (a legal entity set up under Belgian law as a "stichting van openbaar nut”), imec Belgium (IMEC vzw supported by the Government of Flanders), imec the Netherlands (Stichting IMEC Nederland, part of Holst Centre which is supported by the Dutch Government), imec Taiwan (IMEC Taiwan Co.), imec China (IMEC Microelectronics (Shanghai) Co. Ltd.), imec India (Imec India Private Limited) and imec Florida (IMEC USA nanoelectronics design center).