MONitoring, treAtment and pRediCtion of bipolAr Disorder Episodes

MONARCA will develop and validate solutions for multi-parametric, long term monitoring of behavioural and physiological information relevant to bipolar disorder. It will combine those solutions with an appropriate platform and a set of services into an innovative system for management, treatment, and self-treatment of the disease. The MONARCA system will be designed to comply with all relevant security, privacy and medical regulations, will pay close attention to interoperability with existing medical information systems, will be integrated into relevant medical workflows, and will be evaluated in a statistically significant manner in clinical trials.

The MONARCA system will consists of 5 components: a sensor enabled mobile phone, a wrist worn activity monitor, a novel “sock integrated” physiological (GSR, pulse) sensor, a stationary EEG system for periodic measurements, and a home gateway. It will combine GPS location traces, physical motion information, and recognition of complex activities (nutrition habits, household activity, amount and quality of sleep) into a continuously updated behavioural profile. Physiological information from the “GSR sock”, the periodic EEG measurements, voice analysis from mobile phone conversations, and motion analysis will provide an assessment of emotional state and mood. Combining this information with patients’ medical records and established psychiatric knowledge quantitative assessment of patients condition (expressed in Psychiatric Rating Scales like BRAM or HAMD) and prediction of depressive and manic episodes will be implemented.

Closing the loop between the system and the patient an interface for self assessment (on the basis of the above information), provision of warnings and risk profiles and a coaching concept for self treatment will be implemented. For the medical staff, interfaces for interpreting the data, therapy assessment and therapy planning tools (scheduling visits, planning medication) will be developed.