PEREK

Seizure detector and tracker

Designing a smart armband with SEMG that can detect and record myoclonic seizures to better help treat JME patients. It is paired with an application to track and record seizures.

University Project

l  8 Weeks

My Role

Presented as an individual project for the graduate course “Wearable medical device”. My role was user research, UI/UX Design, and physical Product Design.

What is Epilepsy?

Epilepsy is a neurological disorder in which disturbances in the electrical activity of the brain cause seizures. A person is diagnosed with epilepsy if they have two unprovoked seizures.

What is Seizure?

When a seizure occurs, there may be too much or too little brain activity, causing an imbalance between exciting and stopping activity. The chemical changes can lead to surges of electrical activity that cause seizures.

Some seizures can hardly be noticed, while others are totally disabling, depending on the type of seizure.

Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy (JME)

Juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (JME) is a type of epilepsy that starts in childhood or the teen years. It is the most common type of generalized epilepsy syndrome.

It typically happens within 1 to 2 hours of waking up in the morning or after a nap. The first and the most common symptoms are myoclonic seizures which cause rapid, uncontrolled muscle jerks in the arms and legs that last for a few seconds. After a few months the myoclonic jerks start, and the patient may experience tonic-clonic seizures. Generalized tonic-clonic seizures are seen in nearly all people with JME.

How is JME Diagnosed?

The most common and accurate way of diagnosing JME is through Electroencephalogram (EEG). In this test, electrodes are attached to the scalp with a paste-like substance or cap. The electrodes record the electrical activity of the brain. If a patient has epilepsy, it’s common to have changes in the normal pattern of brain waves, even when they are not having a seizure.

Treatment

There is no fast treatment for JME. The treatment of juvenile myoclonic epilepsy starts with educating people about lifestyle and avoidance of seizure triggers. Most people with JME will also need one or more anti-seizure medications. They can control seizures in 90% of people with the condition. In some patients, it usually takes time to prescribe suitable anti-seizure medication.

Peer Product Review

There are not a lot of options on the market that is helpful for seizure detection and tracking. The similar pattern in all of these products is that they are all designed for Tonic-clonic patients and cannot detect JME because they mostly work with motion detection that does not happen in JME. The ones that have electrode detection won’t offer user-friendly design. 

Design requirements

Hardware

  • There should be a device capable to record tonic-clonic and myoclonic seizures in real time and share the data.
  • The design of the device should appeal to the target users who are primarily between the age of 9-14.
  • Because they always need to carry the device, it should be portable, convenient and not very prominent.
  • It should be easy to set up and use the device

Service

  • There should be a service for the patient, their caregiver, and the doctor to monitor and compare their ongoing situation.
  • The doctor should be able to see the history and progress and give further instructions in terms of changing the medication type and dosage
  • Patients and their caregivers should be educated on how to cope with the disease and change their lifestyles accordingly. This could be based on
  • The service should sync to other health apps to monitor their daily activity such as sleep patterns and exercise.

Introducing Project PEREK PEREK

PEREK is a Smart Armband that records seizures in real time. It happens through three electrodes connected to an amplifier device to record the low-frequency sound of the muscle with a particular pattern. This information is then sent to an application for the involved people to monitor.

Application

The Device sends the data and information to an application. Here both the caregivers and patient will see their situation over a period of time. This app also has the intention to educate people with epilepsy on how to cope with their disease.

Colors in Epilepsy

Epilepsy is highly affected by the things user see. and flashing and glittering lights are among the common triggers of epilepsy. It is important to use colors that are not too bright and don’t have very high contrast.

A shade of pale Blue-Purple was selected as the main color code. Purple is the symbol color of Epilepsy Blue and orange are representative colors of health

Notification

An immediate response from the patient is very important in JME overall, They won’t need attendance if everything is ok, and doing that could actually lead to more stressful situations which can act as a trigger. So it is better for the patient to announce their status without interacting with anyone.