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MHH project RELIEV develops digital therapy platform for better medical care of people with inflammatory rheumatic diseases
In Lower Saxony alone, around 245,000 people suffer from rheumatism, including not only older people but also people of working age as well as children and young people. Many sufferers are employed, but due to their illness they are often only partially able to work or are even completely unable to work. The costs for treating rheumatism with medication are high, ranging from €12,000 to €25,000 per year for each case of rheumatism. In addition to painkillers, cortisone preparations and biologics (biotechnologically manufactured drugs that specifically target the inflammatory process), physiotherapy is also an important component in slowing inflammation and improving mobility. However, not all patients are able to access this urgently needed treatment. There are many reasons for this, and it is not only due to limited capacity at practices. It is often difficult for people with rheumatism to fit appointments into their daily routine because full-time work, school or university, longer journeys from rural areas, care from or by relatives or their own limited mobility make it difficult to get to the practice. As a result, physiotherapy sessions that take place several times a week, or other important care modules such as occupational therapy or psychotherapy, are cancelled or not even taken up by many sufferers.
The RELIEV project has been set up to solve this problem. Under the leadership of Professor Dr Georg Behrens, senior physician at the Clinic for Rheumatology and Immunology at Hannover Medical School (MHH), researchers are working with patients, rheumatologists and physiotherapists to develop a new type of care app. The aim is not only to improve the quality of treatment and adapt it to the individual needs of patients, but also to reduce the time required by patients, treating physicians and therapists with the help of the digital therapy platform. By combining personal care with digital services, the number of office visits is expected to decrease by 90 per cent. The NBank is funding the project with half a million euros.
Location-independent care
‘The rheumatism app is not a purely digital offering, but rather it accompanies and supports outpatient therapy,’ emphasises Professor Dr Alexandra Dopfer-Jablonka, senior physician at the clinic. ’We want to help people to help themselves and enable those affected to manage their illness according to their own needs and to adapt the therapy offers to their real lives.’ The app is designed to provide specific video instructions for movement exercises as well as tips for dealing with the disease and psychological stress. It also offers a chat function for contact with therapists or the practice, feedback on the course of therapy and answers to further questions. ‘RELIEV provides location-independent access to professionally verified physiotherapy, occupational therapy and psychotherapy services, with the needs of those affected at its core,’ explains the rheumatologist. ’Users can select the services that are right for them from a modular system, apply them at their own pace and thus take their own healthcare into their own hands.’
Long-term support instead of short-term prescriptions
The basic framework for the app is already in place and is based on experiences from the MHH project ErgoLoCo, a platform for online live occupational therapy for long-term complaints after corona infection, and the follow-up project DiEgO. ‘In these projects, we have already been able to determine that self-determined patients are more likely to stay on the ball and recover more sustainably,’ says Professor Dopfer-Jablonka, because, unlike short-term prescriptions, the app enables long-term support for those affected and helps them to incorporate more movement into their daily lives. Another effect is that RELIEV not only relieves the burden on people with rheumatism and specialist practices, but also on the healthcare system: Thanks to more movement at the beginning of the disease, treatment with expensive biologicals does not have to begin until later. For 100 patients alone, a year's delay would mean a saving of around 1.2 million euros. And that's not even counting the indirect costs of reduced earning capacity and incapacity to work.
Transfer to standard care
The project is starting with 50 patients. After that, the digital therapy platform is to be tested in a larger study with 100 participants. The aim is to transfer the app to standard care. ‘As publicly accessible software, the digital offering could then also be transferred to other chronic illnesses,’ says Professor Jablonka. In that case, RELIEV could make an important contribution to improving medical care in rural areas and making it easier to reconcile therapy with work and family life.
The RELIEV project (long-term interdisciplinary relief and prevention of rheumatic diseases) is being carried out in cooperation with the University Medical Center Göttingen, the Lower Saxony Rheumatism Centre, a rheumatism practice and a physiotherapy practice in Hannover.
For further information, please contact Professor Dr Alexandra Dopfer-Jablonka, jablonka.alexandra@mh-hannover.de.
Rheumatism is painful and the therapy is often time-consuming. A new app is designed to help suffere ...
Copyright: Karin Kaiser/MHH
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Rheumatism is painful and the therapy is often time-consuming. A new app is designed to help suffere ...
Copyright: Karin Kaiser/MHH
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