Proto Strong Mobile App
A mobile application that helps people suffering from food disorders cope and thrive.
About
Anorexia Nervosa
The challenge
Anorexia Nervosa has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric illness - 15%.
Most affected are females (75-90%). Kids at the tender young age of 6 are known to have been treated for Anorexia.
It is the third most common chronic disease among young people after asthma and type 1 diabetes.
50% of people suffering from Anorexia have a serious comorbidity such as depression, and it often leads to early osteoporosis and cardiovascular, muscular, nervous, reproductive, endocrine/metabolic, gastrointestinal, renal and other serious problems.
However, Anorexia Nervosa is one of the few psychiatric illnesses from which one can completely recover. Studies prove that recovery is far more likely when families are integrally involved in the treatment of Anorexia. In fact, the only evidence-based treatment for Anorexia Nervosa is called "family-based treatment" and is an outpatient-based treatment in which the family treats the patient with guidance and help from professionals.
Having experienced the disastrous effects of the disease, we at OSI Labs, have made it our personal mission to design a tool that can help families treat their loved ones suffering from Anorexia, with an eye towards radically extending the platform in groundbreaking ways.
The solution
We sat with parents dealing with the disorder and clarified what do they need in order to facilitate the demanding treatment.What we found as insights:
- Parents find it difficult to keep track of what has the patient eaten or missed and sync this information between them.
- Parents have to battle through the recovery treatment while working and still keeping track of their everyday chores, which makes it quite demanding.
- Governance across distributed product teams
Initial Job-to-be-Done
We came up with an MVP with the following features:
- Create or join a Meal Log where all engaged parties could log eaten and skipped meals
- Have a speech-to-text solution solution that turns the recorded microphone log into a text string
- Introduce a Natural Language Processing (NLP) ad Machine Learning (ML) solution that collects user data, turns into calories intake, and personalises the experience
- Integrate a seamless way to send detailed reports to nutritionists, clinicians, and family members
Once enough personal data has been processed, we planned to integrate the following functionalities:
- Create or join a Meal Log where all engaged parties could log eaten and skipped meals
- A chatbot that acts as the personal assistant/clinician
- Mood-tracking
- Growth & Weight tracking
- Food variety and Food density tracking
About
Proto Strong App
The process
The Technology
Platform(s)
Proto Strong is a cross-platform native application or iOS and Android
Backend
On the backend, we relied on NodeJS & MongoDB
Delivery
We designed, developed, tested, and deployed leveraging a CICD pipeline using Jenkins
The Innovation
Speech to Text
We integrated a Speech-to-Text conversion feature which also includes a neural networking. Combined with our Machine Learning algorithms it provides for a continuously improving API.
Machine Learning
We created our own Machine Learning environment that takes any user input, splits it into a quantity, type, and food item, and returned an ordered list for the user, while allocating calorie intake under the hood.
Chatbot
We want to introduce a chatbot that leverages the gathered data and helps you in any possible matter. From common and healthy food items that helped you in the past to tis, tricks, and success stories to keep you motivated - our chatbot will truly be your personalised clinical advisor.
The Results
There was an immediate interest for the service an we managed to strike partnerships with some major hospitals, so early adoption and user research can be handled. UCSD, Mount Sinai, and Canopy Cover Treatment Center were among the first established partnerships.
