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Participants
Summary
The project has been funded since November 1st 2017. Initial funding was from the Medical Research Council (MRC) and CAVA is currently funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) until June 2025. The core CAVA team is based at the University of East Anglia (UEA), and comprises Principal Investigator Mr John Phillips, Co Investigator Professor Stephen Cox, and Research Associate Dr Emmanuel Jammeh.
The CAVA device was developed in conjunction with a design agency (Wright Design Limited), with supporting computer algorithms being developed by the team at UEA and especially Dr Jacob Newman of UEA. Dizziness is the most common reason for a doctor to visit a patient over the age of 75 years old, and one-third of adults over the age of 65 years experiences at least one fall each year. This is particularly important as the cost of falls to the NHS and social services in people over 60 years old in 1999 was £981 million.
However, we are currently significantly restricted with respect to what specialist tests are available for assessing patients with dizziness, because there are no tests available to evaluate a patient during an actual dizziness attack in the community. This leads to repeated and expensive hospital visits before a diagnosis can be made. The US National Institutes of Health reports that the average number of doctors that a patient with dizziness visits before receiving a correct diagnosis is 4.5. The CAVA project aims to overcome these limitations of the current tests by developing a dizziness monitor from which an accurate diagnosis can be made.
Continuing from that early work, the aim of this grant is to develop a bespoke device that is lightweight, durable, and able to be worn day and night. The project also requires the development of specialist computer software to analyse the data produced by the CAVA device. Once fully developed and tested in clinical studies, it is hoped that our device will be made available at the point of initial referral to a doctor or nurse to avoid delay in diagnosis and ensure cost-effective use of appropriate resources.
Continuing from that early work, the aim of the project is to develop a bespoke device that is lightweight, durable, that can be worn day and night, and that will record data from which diagnosis of dizziness conditions may be made. Such diagnosis requires the development of advanced computer software to analyse the CAVA data.
Funding
