Clear

Clear: Clinical Leading Environment for the Assessment of Rehabilitation protocols in home care

(September 2008 / February 2012)

  • Programme: ICT Policy Support programme under the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP)
  • Coordinator: Signo Motus
  • Consortium: 13 partners (4 IT, 4 SP, 2 PL, 3 NL)
  • Website: www.habiliseurope.com
  • Factsheet: download

Abstract

Since its inception, the Project had the ambition to create a European platform for tele-rehabilitation and to contribute to the harmonization of e-health services at European level.
With this scenario in mind, CLEAR carried out clinical trials in four Member States of the European Union (IT, ES, NL, PL), involving more than 960 patients affected by the most widespread chronic diseases heavily burdening on Health Systems: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD); Musculoskeletal problems and chronic pain; Stroke; Mild cognitive impairments and Dementia.
Dedicated ICT-assisted, rehabilitation protocols for remote rehabilitation and chronic disease management have been designed supporting patient self-training (patient empowerment) under the remote control of medical staff.
These protocols allow people to maintain their abilities for a longer period of time through a personalised set of exercises that patients can execute at home or in “kiosks” located outside hospitals, and close to their abode, where patients can share rehabilitation facilities and socialize. The service is focussed on “HABILIS” integrating advanced information management and synchronous and asynchronous communication facilities. Patients perform the rehab sessions outside the rehabilitation centres, execute the specific exercises that are recorded, encrypted and sent to the clinical team to be reviewed successively. The software, purposely conceived to decrease the necessary time to analyse the data, allows clinicians to assess the performed exercises and update the rehab sessions remotely.

logo CLEAR logo ICT-PSP

The main achievements can be broadly divided in three main sectors:

  1. Technical achievements obtained through the design and implementation of the interoperable software platform (Habilis platform). The Habilis platform is flexible enough to be easily adopted in further contexts (e.g. further diseases, further service models). The quality perceived by users is generally good, especially from the patients and caregivers point of view and from very aged patients without previous IT skills;
  2. Clinical achievements related to six clinical studies on paretic upper limb in stroke survivors, acquired brain injury (ABI), dementia, osteoarthritis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and chronic pain, carried out in the four centres of excellence in Italy, Poland, Spain and The Netherlands. CLEAR demonstrates that tele-rehabilitation is feasible, safe and efficacious being beneficial to patients affected by different diseases;
  3. Methodological Achievements, concerning the Health Technology Assessment based on an innovative multidimensional approach focused on the analysis of all the technical, organizational and legal aspects of all the service components. The result is a complete, broad assessment, carried out by a pool of local independent assessors, providing insights and guidelines for further improving the service and for facilitating the potential service uptake within other Regions or Countries.

CLEAR has been a fundamental step in helping clinicians treating patients who seek health treatment in a comfortable environment, including home, under supervision of a specialized team.
Signo Motus has been involved both as Project Coordinator and as technical partner for the development of the Habilis Platform and provided the technical support underlying the implementation/management of the tele-rehabilitation service at EU level.

Available documents for download: