Sistema de Telemonitoramento para pacientes com Esclerose Lateral Amiotrófica

Abstract

The Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by a progressive and fatal loss of motor neurons of the cerebral cortex, brain stem and spinal cord that, however, keeps preserved the intellectual and cognitive activity of the patient. Patients affected by this disease will invariably need the assistance of mechanical ventilators. For various reasons, these patients are preferably kept at home making it difficult for the health team to monitor their clinical condition. This paper proposes a telemonitoring system that allows the information monitoring from home and hospital devices, in order to monitor the patient regardless of their location. This information representing the patient’s condition are available in real time to the health team, and kept for future reference. The scenario generated by the existence of a system with these features, according to the literature indicates that there is improvement in the quality of life of the family, of the patient and the prolongation of the patient survival. The system proposed in this work was implemented and met all the requirements found in the literature, with contributions from health professionals of specialties commonly belonging to the health teams that accompany ALS patients, achieving a high degree of satisfaction.