Tiimo mood: integrating end-user’s self-assessment module in ADHD assistive technologies for the continuous enhancement of non-medical therapies

Project Information

Tiimood

Grant agreement ID: 836101

DOI

10.3030/836101

Project closed

EC signature date 19 November 2018

Start date 1 December 2018

End date 31 May 2019

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

TIIMO AS
Denmark

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Tiimood (Tiimo mood: integrating end-user’s self-assessment module in ADHD assistive technologies for the continuous enhancement of non-medical therapies)

Reporting period: 2018-12-01 to 2019-05-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder with behavioural symptoms including hyperactivity, impulsivity and/or inattention, which strongly impact the development, education and family life of people with this condition. Globally, 5%-7% of children and adolescents and around 3% of the adult population is estimated to have ADHD, whereas the total number of cases in the EU exceeds 8m. Most of the ADHD challenges are also shared by people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) condition, among them: difficulty in daily structure and planning, learning and academic performance, social relationships, comorbidities and economic burden at both individual and overall societal levels.
Family members, practitioners and therapists dealing with ADHD/ASD face five main pain points:
1. ADHD/ASD treatments are costly, placing a substantial economic burden on patients or their families.
2. ADHD/ASD therapies are time-consuming: apart from requiring the parents’ full commitment, there are continuous follow-up meetings with different specialists and planning detailed schedules of activities.
3. ADHD/ASD therapies need simplicity and discreetness: As the most critical point for ADHD/ASD is loss of focus, therapies need to design tasks to be implemented in an easy / non-invasive way.
4. ADHD/ASD therapies require a high degree of coordination among different approaches, with the joint intervention of educators, behavioural psychologists and practitioners, beyond parents.
5. Progress for people with ADHD/ASD is very difficult to track and assess. Due to the complexity of diagnosis and the joint intervention of several approaches, continuous data collection and follow-up is critical to provide insights on the treatment’s effectiveness.

Tiimo+ is the first and only integrated, AI-powered, automated, non-intrusive and user-friendly solution for supporting children with ADHD/ASD, improving their therapies and follow-up methods via evidence-based information.
Current Tiimo version is a gamified assistive technology for smartwatches, which consistently gives helpful advice and provides a clear overview of what children should do at each step of their daily journey, with immediate and easy-to-read tips such as “do homework”. The ongoing interaction with Tiimo enables children to be one step ahead of what is happening; by receiving this overview, they naturally get more confident in themselves. Current Tiimo system is composed by three elements: The watch helps children to stay on track and see what is next in a non-invasive manner, via micro-interactions; the app tells children when an activity starts, notifying them ahead of time in a user-friendly manner; on the online dashboard, parents and therapists plan the kids’ daily activities.
Tiimo+ is our novel technological development: an adaptive self-assessment tool coupled with a machine learning module (MLM), which enables the continuous improvement of planning techniques and ADHD/ASD therapies. Tiimo+ is an integrated Decision-support Tool: Children provide feed-back on their state of mind after performing key activities, enabling caregivers to understand the patterns having the best impact on each child, e.g. which activities can provoke stress and under which circumstances, how to best integrate different educational, behavioural and medical therapy approaches during the day, etc. The MLM analyses the evolution of children mood and ADHD/ASD symptoms over time - along with their qualitative comments and heart rate – by matching the kids feed-back with the activities performed and the therapies received to provide smart, evidence-based observations and suggestions for future therapies and activity planning.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

- Market and commercialisation feasibility study (task 1): We have decided to follow the same approach for market penetration in all of our target markets: Tiimo+ core customer segment will be families with kids from 5 to 19 years old with Attention Deficit Hiperactivity Disorder or Autism Spectrum Disorder. Therapists are key for Tiimo+ success, benefitting from more effective follow-up and customised therapy suggestions, while acting as ambassadors for our solution. We have confirmed Scandinavia, Germany and the UK as the EU countries that we will target as early adopters during our scale-up, followed by US. We have found local partners in each country and we have established an exploitation and communication plan to establish our go-to-market strategy.
- Product development feasibility study (task 2): We have defined the specifications for our upgraded platform as part of the technology maturation tasks to be implemented during the Phase 2. Moreover, we will establish objectives for undertaking a large-scale piloting in the Denmark, Germany, the UK and the US. We already got the support of key research centres in all those countries.
- Regulatory feasibility study (task 3): In our regulatory study, we have investigated any existing rules and/or necessary procedures and guidelines that are required for ADHD/ASD treatments in EU countries and the US as our first target markets. In this task we were supported by partnering research centres in Denmark, UK, Germany and the US.
- Financial feasibility study & detailed Business Plan (task 4): We have carried out a full market research study by revisiting the competitors analysis (including pricing), interviews with potential customers to assess end-users needs at EU level (kids with ADHD/ASD, their families and caregivers, and their therapists), key stakeholders and engagement strategies. We have established our optimal international pricing strategy, based on our previous experience with Tiimo version 1.0 after evaluating our total investment requirements to bring the product to the market and update our financial projections for a 5-year period post-Phase 2 project.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Our key objective for this Phase 1 Feasibility Study was to verify the technical, practical and economic viability of Tiimo+ for the markets in which we want to launch our product. More specifically, we aimed at verifying that our solution challenges the current status quo on the market and provides a superior performance in accompanying ADHD/ASD treatments while saving costs over the treatment. Therefore, we conducted the following activities:
1. Detailed product development plan and plan for full large-scale piloting/validation;
2. Documentation detailing the legal frameworks and regulatory approach for Tiimo+;
3. Comprehensive report on the market, competitor landscape and commercialisation plan;
4. Elaborated business plan, including full cost breakdown;
5. Establish final requirements for undertaking maturation and large-scale demonstrations under real operating conditions to be implemented in the envisaged Phase 2 project.

With the goal of confirming Tiimo+ commercial viability and finding early adopters, we met with a major potential partners for large scale piloting within the phase2 project, as well as well reputed clinics and therapists specialised in ADHD/ASD in the target markets such as Denmark, Germany, UK and the US. During these meetings we introduced them the superior performance of Tiimo+ and how it improves the results of ADHD/ASD treatments compared to any State-of-the-Art solution. We plan now to collaborate with our potential partners in those markets to introduce Tiimo+ via their professional network and knowledge of the local markets.

Tiimo+ system main components and follow-up modules