Lava Secure £100k funding for Connected Health Project

Biometric technology company The Lava Group, working as part of a consortium, has secured £100,000 of funding from the Connected Health Innovation Centre (CHIC) to invest in R&D for its latest piece of behavioural analysis technology.

The consortium, which is made up of The Lava Group, Exploristics, Homecare Independent Living and I+, will be designing a new product which will monitor agitation levels in dementia and autism patients within the home or residential care environment.

The funding will support the development of a non-obtrusive system to provide long-term assessment of the environment and physiological metrics of the patient.

Through repeated monitoring during periods of agitation the device will have the potential to forewarn carers that agitation is likely and identify the root cause ahead of the behaviour change in order to reduce the influence of triggers.

It is hoped that this product will improve the lives of both the carers and the patients.

Gareth Morrison, CEO of The Lava Group, said: “Our partnership with CHIC on this project provides us with a valuable opportunity to develop a product that can make a real difference to the lives of many people in Northern Ireland. Our experience within the custodial sector has shown that our knowledge base is well placed to develop behavioural analysis technology for use with patients suffering from dementia and autism. There is a growing emphasis on home-based monitoring of chronic illnesses. It isn’t a question of if connected health will begin to impact on our medical treatment, rather it is a question of when.  The benefits in terms of money saved, improved results and increased quality of life for patients and carers, are too good for the health sector to ignore.

CHIC is leading transformational research which aligns care needs with technology providers, researchers and clinical experience. It has already attracted membership from well-known companies including Randox, and together with Ulster University is working alongside smaller companies to develop new ideas.

Professor Chris Nugent, joint principal investigator of CHIC, said: “We are delighted to be working with The Lava Group on this new project. The work plan provides us with the opportunity to produce an innovative solution from both the sensing hardware and data analytics perspectives which offers huge market potential. The companies involved, although from largely different sectors, have complementary skills which underpin the project. This will further assist in helping make an impact once ready for commercialisation.