Microsoft Research's Project Fizzyo gamifies airway clearance exercises

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a genetic disorder that affects mostly the lungs. Long-term issues include difficulty breathing and coughing up mucus as a result of frequent lung infections. One of the main preventative treatment for CF is airway clearance exercises which children find them tedious and boring to perform. Microsoft Research’s Project Fizzyo is trying to solve this problem with a help of a Windows device connected to a cloud.

This project gamifies the airway clearance exercises, breath data of children becomes the controls. Microsoft has developed custom games with the help of hackathons and it is now testing them in collaboration with University College London. This also allows clinicians to monitor their patients and gain greater insight into their health, using statistical analysis and machine learning techniques.

The project will use this technology for passive remote capture and transmission of longitudinal data during ACTs, physical activity and exercise daily in 160 children over 18 months. A data scientist will use this data, reconciled with individual demographic and longitudinal clinical records, to identify positive and negative clinical outcome predictors. Computer gaming will be introduced and removed (interrupted time series design) to evaluate the effect of gaming on ACT adherence and clinical outcomes during the study.

Learn more about this project here.