Buzz Interactive
Innovation Project: Ménière’s Monitor app, supporting monitoring and management of Meniere's disease
An app to help support, monitor and manage Meniere's disease, a poorly understood ear condition that receives limited research attention.
The University of Exeter has been collaborating with Cornish technology company, Buzz Interactive, on the Ménière’s Monitor, a mobile phone application developed in 2013. The Ménière’s Monitor allows users to collect information about their disease, helping them to manage their own condition as well as providing vital research data.
To date the app has proved to be extremely useful to participants, clinicians and researchers alike. Using data from the app, researchers at the University of Exeter have provided robust evidence for a correlation with a) the weather and b) stress in frequency of debilitating attacks. The app has also benefited participants, allowing them to monitor and identify individual triggers.
For Buzz Interactive, this collaboration has led to the company expanding into new markets and building a track record to help attract new business.
The In Residence Scheme through the Smartline project has facilitated further exploration into how the Ménière’s Monitor could be taken to the next level; providing additional functionality for users and importantly exploring the adaptations required to develop an innovative clinically useful tool.
Buzz Interactive have successfully applied for funding for a Follow-on Research Project which means they are now developing the Ménière’s Monitor into a tool that can be widely utilised to improve self-management, clinical interactions and overall understanding of Ménière’s. The team at Buzz Interactive are working together with the researchers, clinicians and patients on proposed amendments to significantly enhance the Ménière’s Monitor.
“Buzz has benefited from working side by side with academics and clinicians to hone the app to fully meet medical needs too. This is an extra layer of insight that we don’t always get to experience with our clients and one of the reasons that the collaboration with Smartline works so well for Buzz.”
“There are so few resources for us suffering from Meniere’s. This is awesome, just that someone is even doing something about it!”
