VertiGo - Ad-hoc medical help for dizziness patients on mobile devices using AI

Dizziness is one of the most common medical symptoms. Both central and peripheral vestibular vertigo syndromes exhibit pathognomic involuntary eye movements. The cause can be a life-threatening stroke or a cerebral hemorrhage, each of which requires immediate intervention. On the other hand, disorders of the vestibular system are not considered time-critical. In order to differentiate the cause of dizziness, it is essential to record the associated eye movements in order to estimate the urgency of the necessary medical treatment.

In the VertiGo project, a mobile videonystagmography for smartphones has been developed, which can be used independently without medical specialists, regardless of time and location.

As part of the VertiGo project, an Android app was developed that has the following tasks:

• screening tool
  • digital anamnesis and evaluation using a rule-based expert system
  • automatic detection of eye movements and detection of a nystagmus
  • provide information about the cause of dizziness and urgency to visit a doctor
• training tool
  • ad-hoc help for users
  • display of cause-related self-help exercises

The “VertiGo” project was funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. This project was a joint work of the chair of software engineering and programming languages at the University of Düsseldorf and the Clinic for Ear, Nose and Throat Medicine at the University Hospital of Düsseldorf.

The VertiGo team took part in the startup accelerator program of the Medical Innovations Incubator GmbH (second batch in 2022).

More information can be found here.