EmPaDis
EmPaDis or EMpowering PAtients and persons with a DISability is a new research area within IDLab.
Within this research track, the aim is to adopt ICT technologies and in particular technologies being researched and developed within the IDLab research group. The idea is to develop tangible solutions making a difference in daily life rather than coming up with theoretic studies. In all cases, the role of or the benefit for the person with a disability or patient comes first, although that should not necessarily contradict the benefit of caregivers or assistants.
Some candidate topics are:
- Benefiting from sensors in a smartphone such as a camera, location or motion sensor. In particular persons with a visual impairment can benefit from such solutions.
- Building Information Models (BIMs) are the next generation of managing the construction and maintenance process. Such BIMs can contain detailed information in a standardised format, enabling applications for determining whether a building is accessible for persons with reduced mobility or for assisting persons with a visual impairment in indoor navigation.
- The Solid technology currently under investigation in the SolidLab project is an enabler for personal data spaces: the idea is that personal data of an individual is centralized in a so called pod and that this individual control who can access his personal data. Late diagnosis or misdiagnosis is a common problem in rare diseases as health professionals are frequently unaware or not familiar with these diseases. Research on rare diseases is also significantly hindered by the fact that researchers do not easily find patients with rare diseases. The Solid technology could help patients affected by rare diseases to get sooner the right diagnosis (e.g., through an online service that they want to share their medical data with) and making them directly reachable for researchers advancing the progress in the treatment or management of their disease in the long run.