Digital Networking for Therapy and Rehabilitation

The topic of this year’s build.well.being at the St. Pölten UAS was “Digital Therapeutics and Rehabilitation for All”. Participants from all over Europe met at the digital health event, which was also broadcast online and streamed live.

More than 100 experts from science and industry discussed digital innovations for the healthcare and social sector with start-ups and students.

The organisers Europaregion Donau-Moldau, Erasmus+ DIRENE, and the St. Pölten UAS invited to an activity-packed afternoon. The digital health event connected health scientists with technicians, research with innovative ideas from students, and healthcare companies with start-ups and experts from the field.

Digital Health Applications on the Rise

The keynote address on “The Establishment of a New Treatment Modality: Germany's Experience with Prescription Digital Therapeutics” was held by Marius Mainz, Strategy and Growth Manager at HelloBetter. The “Digital Healthcare Act” enables digital health applications (DiGA) to be prescribed “on prescription” by medical and psychotherapeutic care providers in Germany for the first time. In addition to the legal framework and regulations, Mainz presented the first experiences with the evidence-based product development and marketing of DiGAs and elaborated on how other European countries can learn from this.

New Approaches to Healthcare

“The use of digital technologies will revolutionise healthcare in the coming years, for example when it comes to digital support for rehabilitation. In physiotherapy in particular, playful augmented reality approaches in connection with motion tracking can lead to an improvement in therapy. The Endowed Chair of Biomechanics at the St. Pölten UAS is thus researching individualised therapy approaches using machine learning algorithms”, says Jakob Doppler, Academic Director of the study programme Digital Healthcare at the St. Pölten UAS.

All-Around View of Digital Rehabilitation

Researchers from the ERASMUS+ project DIRENE from Finland, Spain, Germany, and Austria presented a handbook on digital teaching for the healthcare professions. The project is dedicated to building competencies and skills for a new era of person-centred and mobile-driven digital rehabilitation. Yuvesh Aubeeluck from the Deggendorf Institute of Technology presented the prototype of an exoskeleton for future use in healthcare and nursing.

Students from the study programme Digital Healthcare presented their projects, including MirReha. The project developed a smart mirror for patients with Parkinson's disease that supports speech therapy in the home environment. The mirror offers exercises that expand conventional speech therapy with speech therapists and are performed in the patients’ own bathroom. Video instructions are provided directly via the mirror itself.

The speaker videos, photos and the post-event report are available on the build.well.being 2022 website.

build.well.being 2022

10/06/2022

The annual event build.well.being is an open networking event for makers in the field of digital healthcare. The networking event took place both on site at the St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences and online and was hosted together with the Europaregion Donau-Moldau and the “ERASMUS+” project DIRENE. The event was supported by: European Region Danube-Vltava, "ERASMUS+" project DIRENE, stapp one, Digital Makers Hub, AAL Austria, Digital Innovation Hub OST, ecoplus, the Austrian Public Health Association, SMARTUP, and E³UDRES². The speaker videos, photos and the post-event report are available on the build.well.being 2022 website: 

Links to the mentioned projects

• DIRENE 
• MirReha