Patients sought to help develop asthma monitoring device myAirCoach

The theme for World Asthma Day on 5th May is "You can control your asthma", and researchers at NHLI are developing a monitor called 'myAirCoach'.

This pan-European project is hoping to develop a way for patients to better monitor their condition using mobile technology, enabling them to keep track of their asthma and lower their risk of an attack.

'myAirCoach' will use a network of sensors to collect data about a person’s symptoms and environment. There are many environmental influences that can affect an individual’s ability to manage their asthma.  The data will be transferred to a mobile device for analysis and will feed into a personalised digital model of each individual’s asthma, supporting patients to better manage their condition and optimise their treatment. “This is a really innovative use of mobile technology and has the potential to make a big difference to people with asthma to produce a meaningful tool for patients”, declared Breda Flood, President of the European Federation of Allergies and Airways Diseases Patients’ Associations. 

Despite the many asthma treatments available it still has an impact on many people’s quality of life, but this project will put patients at the centre of their asthma management. An Advisory Patient Forum (APF) has been set up to guide researchers to ensure the resulting self-management system is relevant to patient needs. Patient representatives from EFA and Asthma UK will inform the design of myAirCoach through focus groups and surveys to make sure it is useful to patients in the real world.

If you have asthma and wish to be one of the patient experts helping to design a European project on asthma management, please email research@asthma.uk.org. You will receive updates on the consultations and activities that will take place under myAirCoach project.

Funded by the EU Programme for Research and Innovation Horizon 2020, myAirCoach represents an opportunity to demonstrate the wider benefits of involving patients in the development of new technologies to improve healthcare. Dr Omar Usmani and Professor Fan Chung – are lead investigators for this project that will be run in the Respiratory Biomedical Research Unit at the Royal Brompton Hospital and the National Heart and Institute at Imperial