With our AnyHand, we are pursuing the goal of increasing the therapy time for hand patients. In addition to the use in the therapy practice or rehabilitation clinic, this also includes the possibility of using the AnyHand at home. The restrictions caused by the Corona pandemic in particular have once again highlighted the potential of such an application. To ensure that patients are also optimally cared for at home, we are currently developing a telemedical app for the AnyHand with the support of an InnoTop grant from the Investitions- und Strukturbank Rheinland-Pfalz.
The patient can answer questions about their well-being, exercise behaviour and pain levels daily on their smartphone or tablet at home. In addition, the app tracks which exercises they do and how they contribute to their overall condition. In addition to using AnyHand, exercises can also be performed within the app, for example in the area of neurocognitive rehabilitation .
The training behaviour and the associated questions not only provide information about the condition of the injured hand, but also reflect the patient's motivation, agility and self-confidence. For example, the patient indicates his pain level via a scale, motivation and consistency are determined via text questions. If the patient then reports increased pain or his motivation for training drops, the app gives a hint to the attending doctor or therapist and can also recommend making an appointment on site at the practice. This means that the check-ups no longer have to take place in a standardised rhythm, but are geared exactly to what the patient needs at the time. This not only saves time and resources on both sides, but also allows for more individualised care.
With its Digital Health approach, the app promotes that doctor, therapist and patient work very closely together during therapy, as they are constantly networked with each other. The patient is also to be "taken by the hand" during long training phases from home. This is mainly aimed at increasing his motivation to perform exercises consistently.
After our AnyHand recently received the CE mark , we are currently evaluating the first drafts for the user interface of the app. By the way, we are still looking for a suitable name - do you have any ideas?
