Medical app for children with metabolic diseases

Terry Derks (Pediatrician, UMCG) specializes in metabolic diseases. He develops a medical app that significantly improves the lives of young children with metabolic disorders, and their families. He can do this thanks to a start-up grant from Fund NutsOhra, and is now seeking additional funding for the implementation of the app.

In particular, the app is designed for children with Glycogen Storage Disease (GSD). This is a serious metabolic disease that often presents at a young age. There is no cure. Moreover, it is very rare, each year there are about 10 children in the Netherlands with GSD. To keep their blood sugar levels stable, these patients follow a lifelong and intense diet and are accurately monitored.

There are only a few medical centers in the Netherlands that treat this disease. The UMCG is one of them. The sick children therefore often have to travel far to the hospital. This is tedious, because this way the children miss lots of school days and working parents need to take a lot of leave.

Monitoring at a distance

The purpose of the medical app (incl. a glucose sensor registration) is to be able to monitor the young patients at a distance, so that they need fewer trips to the hospital. Also, the app will improve the monitoring. The app is being developed by a specialist project team (dietician, pediatrician, app developer).

The app is already in operation, in the testing phase. What now needs to be done, are two things: 1) The app needs to be further developed, but more importantly 2) The application must be implemented broadly after all necessary tests. Therefore the app needs a CE-mark and a data policy. The start-up grant from NutsOhra is not sufficient for this. The project team is therefore looking for additional funding.

Contribute

Would you like to contribute, please contact the Ubbo Emmius Fund. This fall the fund will also start up a crowfduning campaing to support this project at www.rugsteunt.nl.

• Ubbo Emmius Fonds

More information

• Metabolic Diseases Groningen - Terry Derks