Position determination device and system for determining and registering an injection location

Abstract

The present invention relates to a position determination device (100) (and system) for determining and registering an injection location of a liquid drug administered on a body part of a user, wherein the position determination device (100) (and system) comprises a position determination element (110) configured to provide a position signal representing a current location of the position determination device (100), and one or more processing units (150) configured to derive data representing an actual injection location based on the user in response to a current location being determined by the position determination unit (110).

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0001]The invention relates generally to embodiments of a position determination device for and method of determining and registering an injection location of self-administered liquid drug administration on a user. Further the invention relates to calibration of such position determination devices.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]A growing number of people have a condition involving liquid drug delivery administration where the user themselves deliver the relevant liquid drug (i.e. self-administration) by injection at an appropriate injection location or site using an injection device or the like.[0003]Preferably, the liquid drug to be delivered is insulin but the invention is applicable to all liquid drug delivery devices where a user administers a drug on at least a somewhat regular basis, e.g. several times a day or less frequent like a number of times in a week, etc., by injection into an appropriate body part.[0004]Other examples of user-administered liqui...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0046]In some embodiments, the one or more position determination elements comprise a combination of the exemplary embodiments comprising one or more elements adding further reference point(s) and parameter(s) for determining the injection location given above and as disclosed herein. This will add further reference point(s) and parameter(s) for determining the injection location thereby further increasing the quality and / or reliability thereof.

[0047]In some embodiments, the permanent or electromagnet source, the sound reflecting source, the sound emitting source, the light source, the reflector, and / or the radio signal source is located in a cap of a liquid drug administration device. In this way, the respective element(s) (to be kept stationary at least during determination of the injection location), are readily available at the time of injection. The element(s) (e.g. the cap) may e.g. simply be placed on a table or other during determination of injection location thereby providing a fixed reference point for use in determination of the injection location.

[0048]In some embodiments, the position determination device is further configured to register an actual amount of administered liquid drug and / or a time-stamp when or in connection with deriving data representing an actual injection location. In this way, an accurate data or diary log may automatically be provided that improves daily diabetes administration for the user and / or as well as providing data for improving treatment by healthcare professionals, for academic use, etc.

[0049]In some embodiments, the position determination device further comprises an image sensor or other sensor element configured to detect an amount of liquid drug being administered by the liquid drug administration device. In this way, dosage data may be collected (and communicated further on) by the position determination device in situations where a liquid drug administration device otherwise does not support this. In some embodiments, this is achieved by using an image sensor that is e.g. hand held by the user or mounted on e.g. a pair of glasses or elsewhere on the user. The image produced by the image sensor would then e.g. be digitally processed to identify the liquid drug administration device, an injection region or location, and a location of the liquid drug administration device in relation to the injection region or location. This may be achieved by using any suitable image processing techniques such as but not limited to e.g. edge detection, ANN (artificial neural networks), DNN (deep neural networks), or some combination or derivation hereof. In some embodiments, image recognition may be used to augment or supplement the position determination techniques described herein. The image recognition could e.g. add a second source of data to the movement based and / or other detector based technique(s) disclosed herein thus improving precision and / or reliability further. In other embodiments, image recognition could be used to determine actual starting points of the movement of hand and drug administration device thus reducing the need for fixed calibration.

Problems solved by technology

In such recurring self-injection regimens it is very important that the user does not inject the drug at the same location every time or too often as this may cause ‘pockets’ of the drug to gather under the skin, cause hard lumps, and / or cause extra fat deposits to develop as well as the onset of lipohypertrophy and / or similar skin / tissue damages (that may change the way the liquid drug is absorbed by the body at that location), and so on.

However, there is scientific evidence that a significant number of users may still forget where the last injection was made (see e.g. Diabetes Meab.

Some users may also be relatively young children, which may have a harder time sticking rigorously to a recommended rotation scheme and / or remembering it fully all the time.

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