A sense-act digital technology for the home-based care of diabetic foot ulcers

Diabetic Foot Ulcers (DFU) are one of the most common and poorly controlled complications of diabetic patients (26.1M DFUs/year worldwide). A DFU is a complex pathology of multifactorial nature, which is difficult to manage clinically, deeply affects the quality of life (e.g., ~20% risk of severe infection and amputation) and life expectancy (5-year mortality comparable to cancer) of patients, and impacts NHS finances (~1% of annual budget). The development and use of Digital Health Technologies (DHT) could shift the epicentre of DFU assessment and care from a clinical to a home-based setting. This would enable continuous and cost-effective monitoring, generating opportunities for more patient-centred and patient-led management of the disease, a more comprehensive screening tool that could integrate objective (e.g., sensor-based data), subjective (e.g., patient report) and clinical (e.g., diagnostic) information, and a decision support system for prompter, more effective interventions, and, most importantly, prevention.
We aim to develop a novel digital therapeutic intervention that integrates multiple data sources (e.g., wearables, internet of things, patient and clinical feedback) into an individualised sense/act system for the home-based management of DFU. The system will focus on the medical domain and include psycho-social well-being.