Paul Ackermann

People with some degree of immobilization, for example elderly people, patients following surgery, injury or even prolonged sitting, have an increased risk of developing blood clots in their veins. This medical condition is called venous thromboembolism (VTE) and mainly consists of deep vein thrombosis in the legs and its potential sequelae

pulmonary embolism, which may be a life threatening condition. VTE prevention is currently done by using daily injection of heparins or intermittent pneumatic compression (IPC). However, the compliance of these treatments in hospitals is known to be low. Moreover, the compliance at home settings in not sufficiently studied but presumably much lower. To tackle this problem, the project's applicants have developed technology based on Neuromuscular Electrical Stimulation (NMES) that can efficiently prevent VTE. This approach consists of constantly monitoring muscle activity on the lower limbs and performing electrical stimulation whenever the muscles have been inactive for some time. The idea behind this project is to take advantage of the latest advances in the Microelectronics field, and develop an embedded system that integrates a multi-channel NMES ASIC, muscle movement sensors, wireless communications, and a patch consisting of an elastic permeable electrode matrix. This combination leads to miniaturization and low-power consumption of the whole system, allowing for a much more simple, flexible, and user-friendly medical device for high compliance VTE prevention. Furthermore, once the ASIC is mass-produced, the electronics become quite inexpensive. This would allow a larger amount of the population, that otherwise could not afford the costs, to access this medical technology.