I- Inhale

The challenge

Asthma affects roughly 339 million people worldwide. COPD has a prevalence of 251 million and annually causes roughly causes 5% of deaths worldwide. Both conditions are treated with inhalation medication that is delivered by an inhaling device. Adherence to inhaled medication is significantly associated with reduced risk of death and hospital admissions. At present there is no good way to keep track of the adherence to inhaled medication.

The solution

Our aim is to design an innovative inhaling device that can send information on the quantity of inhalations to a mobile device. Data would then be stored in an app and could be used to track the medication adherence of a patient. The data could also be used to identify possible triggers, by showing when the back-up medication was used. Patients could keep track of possible triggers in the app as well. This device could improve the self-management capacity of the patient and would be one step further towards personalised medicine.

The creation of an innovative inhaler that can improve pulmonary health worldwide.