SenseTime Unveils Intelligent Nursing System for ALS Patients with Industry-First Capabilities to Promote AI for Good

March 16, 2022 – SenseTime has developed the first intelligent nursing system of its kind for patients suffering from the rare disease "ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis)", which provides 24-hour contactless care and real-time monitoring of abnormal physiological indicators of patients. The intelligent nursing system was tried out by patient for the first time and received positive feedback. In the future, SenseTime will continue to cooperate with NGOs and hospitals in the hope of benefiting more patients and unleashing the power of AI for good.

Dr. Qigong Sun, Director of Applied Research Laboratory of SenseTime, said, “The ice bucket challenge has made people pay more attention to ALS patients. SenseTime specifically designed an intelligent nursing system for ALS patients, and we are pleased to announce that the system has been officially delivered to the first patient user. We will continue to leverage AI innovation to benefit more patients.”

The intelligent nursing system has been officially delivered to the first patient user.

ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. With the gradual development of the disease, the patients gradually lose their speech and mobility. Severe patients have difficulty in breathing, swallowing and expectoration, which may lead to death if not treated in time. Therefore, uninterrupted and meticulous care is the key to taking care of ALS patients.

The intelligent nursing system developed by SenseTime is a brand-new solution, providing 24-hour contactless care for ALS patients. While monitoring the physiological indexes of patients in real time, it also has functions including emergency warning, active calling, sleep analysis, abnormal statistical detection and so on, which can provide long-distance care for ALS patients.

24/7 Contactless Care

The system adopts multispectral sensor, which is not affected by lighting conditions and can support 24-hour uninterrupted work. Based on computer vision technology, the system can keenly capture the painful expressions of patients who have lost speech and mobility, and timely notify nursing staff to deal with the critical situation within 3 seconds to avoid the risk of patients' lives.

Through a series of predefined action logic, active calling can be realized without voice and fixed posture. For instance, patients can send out active call signals by making facial expressions with his mouths and eyes.

Moreover, different from traditional medical equipment which usually monitors physiological indexes by sticking electrodes to the skin of patients, the system completely adopts non-invasive and contactless monitoring of physiological indexes, which can minimize the discomfort of patients.

Using the multispectral imaging sensor, the body surface temperature and the fluctuation degree of the chest cavity of patients can be collected in the absence of light, and other physiological indexes such as respiratory rate and heart rate can be quickly and accurately tracked. The system can give a warning when abnormal body indexes are captured, especially when the patient stops breathing.

Mark Ma, Co-founder and Executive Director of SenseTime, said, “While continuously promoting AI technology and its application in the medical field, SenseTime is committed to developing this intelligent nursing system for ALS patients to protect and care for more disadvantaged groups. Moving forward, SenseTime will continue to leverage AI technologies to fulfill its social responsibilities, creating a better AI-empowered future through innovation.”