A Decision Making Approach for the Remote, Personalized Evaluation of COPD Patients' Health Status

This paper presents a decision making approach for the remote management of COPD patients based on the early detection of disease exacerbation episodes. An e-diary card is defined to evaluate a number of physiological variables and clinical parameters acquired remotely by means of wearable and environmental sensors deployed in patients' long-stay settings. The automatic evaluation of the card results in a so- called Chronic Status Index (CSI) whose computation is tailored to patients' specific manifestation of the disease (i.e., patient's phenotype). The decision support method relies on a parameterized analysis of CSI variations so as to early detect worsening changes, identify exacerbation severity and track the patterns of recovery. A web-based service has been set up and simulation tests have shown the feasibility of the method. Validity and sensitivity are currently being evaluated in a trail study with 30 COPD patients, monitored at home.