Ictal® - a robot assisting in epilepsy diagnosis and therapy

From today's article, you'll learn how the Neurosphera Epilepsy Treatment Center uses the latest technological advances to take epilepsy treatment to a completely new, better level.

With our patients and physicians who work with CTP Neurosphera in mind, we have created our own unique solutions and tools that improve therapy effectiveness and change the current approach to epilepsy treatment. What is this change about? What technology exactly are we talking about and how will it affect the epilepsy treatment process? We have summarized the most important information from both patient and physician perspectives.

Robot Ictal® – Information for Patients

The use of computers in medicine is becoming increasingly popular and necessary. At CTP Neurosphera, we have long been looking for ways to use modern technology advances in treating epilepsy patients. This ambition and mission, years of work and experience, have led to creating an absolutely innovative patient care system – the Neuroterminal® system.

The system's name relates to its organization and reveals its basic functionality. The system consists of integrated and connected patient and physician terminals. After entering and completing your data and medical history, you can be in constant, daily contact with your doctor. This gives epilepsy patient care a completely new dimension, making doctor-patient communication more convenient and effective than ever before.

Ictal® – the Brain of Neuroterminal

The brain of Neuroterminal is Robot Ictal®. It's a special cybernetic module containing artificial intelligence and machine learning tools. It was developed by Dr. Piotr Zwoliński - an outstanding epileptologist and medical partner of the Neurosphera Epilepsy Treatment Center. Dr. Zwoliński spent years cataloging and describing features of dozens of MLPP-classified seizure types. He described each with a set of 100 unique features.

All scientific knowledge has been described mathematically. Additionally, Dr. Zwoliński described and entered into the system over 30 medications commonly used in epilepsy therapy domestically and abroad, as well as recommendations from world-renowned authorities and scientific societies regarding the use and dosing of these medications. This allowed us to create a vast knowledge library that can now be used for patient diagnosis and treatment. After entering patient data and information about used medications into computer memory, the computer will compare them in real-time with described cases and global therapeutic recommendations, providing the attending physician with a diagnosis and suggesting appropriate treatment.

Robot Ictal supports our neurologists' diagnosis and work. It's an advanced tool, or in other words - an experienced virtual consultant, whose support is directly used by every doctor working in Neuroterminal. As a patient, you don't have direct access to it. However, you can be sure that when registering in our system, you're under the care of not only a doctor but also our robot with artificial intelligence.

Benefits for the Patient

All doctors working at CTP Neurosphera can use Robot Ictal's help. Thanks to this, regardless of individual specialists' experience and knowledge, our patients can count on very well-organized and standardized therapy. It's tailored to their individual treatment plan while based on comprehensive knowledge and study of other similar cases. The knowledge contained in the system was developed primarily based on Dr. Zwoliński's many years of medical experience. This means that every doctor creates equivalent therapy, consistent with Dr. Zwoliński's knowledge, way of thinking, and potential recommendations.

Of course, wherever Dr. Zwoliński's consultation is needed, Neurosphera doctors discuss all difficult cases with him during medical consultations. The entire therapeutic path at Neurosphera, thanks to the use of digital tools, is strictly calculated for the highest patient comfort and convenience. If you've registered in Neuroterminal's patient panel, you can see how simple the system is to use, and contact with your doctor is now easier than ever.

If you have additional questions about epilepsy treatment at CTP Neurosphera or about the Neuroterminal system – check out our FAQ section, where we answer the most frequently asked questions from our patients!

Chance for Difficult, Drug-Resistant Cases

The use of computers and modern technology in epilepsy diagnosis and therapy also provides opportunities for therapeutic progress in the most difficult cases. Thanks to enormous computing power, we can analyze millions of features in millions of patients at once, in real-time. This is an undeniable advantage of computers over the human brain. No research team can work on so many cases simultaneously. Ictal can conduct comparative diagnostics in real-time. Therefore, we hope that in some severe forms of epilepsy, the computer will find and suggest new patterns we couldn't notice and propose solutions, especially for patients where all known diagnostic and therapeutic methods have failed so far.

Future in Cybermedicine

The use of computers and statistical-computational systems in medicine has been known for some time. IBM's Supercomputer Watson has been used in oncological diagnostics for nearly 10 years. It was first used in lung cancer diagnosis and treatment by specialists at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Watson, in searching for distinguishing features in certain tumor types, after analyzing patient data where 8 risk factors were detected, found two new ones that research teams couldn't detect. So if we want to accelerate or even revolutionize diagnostics and subsequent therapy – it's necessary to expand the possibilities of introducing artificial intelligence, which may not be able to replace a doctor but gives them a tool to fight even more effectively for their patients' health.

We believe that in this way, we're meeting not only certain trends in cybermedicine but above all the expectations and needs of people with epilepsy.

Robot Ictal® – Information for Doctors

The integrated patient care system – Neuroterminal is an advanced network (cloud) communication system created by Dr. Piotr Zwoliński – an outstanding epileptologist and medical partner of the Neurosphera Epilepsy Treatment Center, to rationalize, unify, and raise the level of epilepsy diagnostics and treatment.

The most important element of the system is the cybernetic module – an internal robot called Ictal®, which contains tools of so-called assisting intelligence. It's a set of mathematical-statistical engines that, when activated, make automatic diagnosis and recognition in patients. The robot uses an ontological library created by Dr. Zwoliński – a description of dozens of MLPP-classified seizure types, described with a unique set of 100 features. Each classified seizure was entered as a so-called Standard learning vector (sequence of digits). Each seizure feature from 1 to 100 has its mathematical definition – e.g., "1" feature present, "0" feature absent. This creates a standard vector for a given seizure type. After entering patient documentation, the computer analyzes the data, and the closer a standard vector is to the patient's seizure description, the closer we get to the described vector. Based on this, the computer makes a diagnosis. Additionally, descriptions of all commonly known medications in Poland and abroad, over 30 used in epilepsy treatment, were entered into operating memory, along with recommendations from world-famous specialists and scientific societies regarding types of medications, order of use, and recommended doses. This created an additional automatic treatment module – suggesting the best, optimal pharmacological path. Data can be entered and processed at any disease moment, and Ictal® provides results in real-time. Thus, the robot will find application in any therapeutic situation.

Benefits for the Doctor and Medical Team

All doctors operating in the Neuroterminal environment and having Robot Ictal® at their disposal can, after entering patient data into the system, use therapeutic solutions proposed by the computer appropriate to the patient's current clinical state. Thanks to the implementation of cybernetic solutions in epilepsy diagnostics and therapy in daily work, the doctors' work model becomes standardized and systematized. When the entire medical team begins to react therapeutically in a similar way, the unity and coherence of work significantly improve, and thus the quality of treatment. All knowledge contained in the system was developed based on Dr. Zwoliński's medical experience, so it can be said that even a less experienced doctor can propose therapy equivalent to Dr. Zwoliński's potential recommendations.

This allows for patient diversification across the entire team and thus increases patient fluctuation in the clinic. A measurable benefit for young doctors, e.g., those in specialization training, is joining a team where, thanks to the "digital assistant," they can automatically work at the level of experienced colleagues. Of course, all doctors joining the Neurosphera team also have the opportunity for continuous knowledge development through participation in training and consultations.

Chance for Difficult, Drug-Resistant Cases

Digitalization of epilepsy diagnostics and treatment also provides opportunities for therapeutic progress in the most difficult cases. Thanks to Ictal's enormous capabilities, we can analyze millions of features in millions of cases simultaneously, in real-time. No research team can work on so many cases, which provides completely new possibilities. Therefore, using digital tools, we want to utilize their most important and irreplaceable benefits: memory, multifactor analysis, meaning comparison of huge areas and finding distinctive features. We hope that in some severe forms of epilepsy, the computer will find and suggest new patterns we couldn't notice and propose solutions, especially for patients where all known diagnostic and therapeutic methods have failed so far. The entire Neurosphera team places great hopes in the automation and large scope of our work. We can say this is the proper application of so-called deep learning methods, meaning machine learning in medicine, allowing for evaluation of much more data, resulting in deeper and broader analysis.

Future in Cybermedicine

The use of computers and statistical-computational systems in medicine has been known for some time. The above-mentioned example of IBM's Supercomputer Watson used in oncological diagnostics is just one example. However, we believe that just as Supercomputer Watson proved exceptionally effective in detecting additional risk factors in cancer cases, Robot Ictal® will prove to be technology that will allow developing and finding even more optimal and effective processes for treating epilepsy.

Using our solutions and technologies, we want to accelerate development and even revolutionize epilepsy diagnostics and therapy. Introduce a completely new standard of patient care. We believe that thanks to the implementation of assisting intelligence, this is possible. Moreover – it's already happening, and as a doctor, you can become an important part of it!