Health App: Digital against dementia

In this article you will read about,

• how the Danish scale-up Brain+ helps dementia patients,
• how the company enters the German market
• and how the Open Telekom Cloud supports this.
   

The Danish health scale-up Brain+ uses the strengths of the Open Telekom Cloud for the treatment of dementia: extensive compliance with the requirements of the healthcare market and scalability.

In the heart of Denmark, the scale-up Brain+ is doing pioneering work in the field of digital therapeutics. The company is taking on the challenge of improving the lives of people with dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Dementia, a slowly progressing disease, is an increasing challenge, especially in ageing societies. Its effects are often tragic for those affected and their relatives.

With around 55 million people affected worldwide and a doubling of cases in Germany since 2001 to 1.8 million today, the need for effective prevention measures is coming into focus.

Cognitive stimulation therapy (CST) offers a promising answer. It was developed in the UK in 2003 and has already been extensively clinically validated. It can noticeably slow down the progression of the disease in patients with mild and moderate dementia. CST is a therapeutic program that challenges patients' thinking and memory through a mixture of conversations, games, puzzles, music and pictures. The World Alzheimer Association recommends its widespread use, and in Germany CST has been recognized as a guideline therapy since 2016.

As a pioneer in the field of digital therapeutics, the Copenhagen-based scale-up Brain+ is pursuing the goal of opening up CST for dementia treatments. Their solution – the CST Therapist Companion – is based on the latest scientific findings. The app acts as a digital assistant that simplifies and optimizes the use of CST. It supports therapists along a 14-week program by organizing the sequence of individual sessions and providing the materials for individual sessions. The app provides the therapist with a comprehensive tool that manages, facilitates and optimizes CST-based dementia therapy. Following its success in the Danish market, the scale-up now wants to reach the German market with its digital dementia helper.

In Germany, the introduction of legislative amendments in recent years has led to the emergence of a market for health apps, so-called DiGAs. Thanks to this development, it is now possible for doctors and therapists to prescribe listed DiGA apps on prescription, with the costs being covered by health insurance companies.

With its health app, Brain+ offers hope and support for dementia sufferers and their families. The Copenhagen-based company is aiming for approval as a digital therapeutic (DTx) and wants to go through the DiPA/DiGA process. “With this in mind, it was not an option for us to use a US cloud as the operating platform for the backend,” explains George Webberley, Full-Stack Developer and Tech Lead at Brain+. “We wanted to position ourselves for the German and European market right from the start.”

Health apps in Germany must meet strict data protection and security requirements. Brain+ needed a cloud solution that is not only powerful and flexible, but also masters the complex regulatory landscape of the German healthcare market. As a European cloud, the Open Telekom Cloud offers its users compliance with German and European data protection and data security standards and is therefore also suitable for processing sensitive data, for example in the healthcare sector. “With the Open Telekom Cloud, we have found the ideal springboard for offering our health app in Germany too,” summarizes Webberley.

The cloud infrastructure also offers Brain+ the necessary scalability to offer its app in the UK and – later – other European countries. Cloud services such as Elastic Cloud Server, Elastic Volume Service and Elastic Load Balancer create a flexible and secure basis for the CST Therapist Companion. The availability of container technology on the Open Telekom Cloud was particularly important for Brain+. The Cloud Container Engine based on Kubernetes enables dynamic further development and the rapid rollout of innovations.

The CST Therapist Companion has been available since autumn 2023 and Brain+ can continue to pursue its vision of revolutionizing the treatment of dementia through digital therapeutics. The company is setting new standards in healthcare and opening up new opportunities to improve the independence and quality of life of people with dementia and their caregivers.

The partnership between Brain+ and the Open Telekom Cloud is a milestone on the way to a future in which digital solutions play a central role in the treatment of dementia. As a Circle Partner, Brain+ also benefits from the exclusive additional support services of the Open Telekom Cloud.