Improving Long COVID patient recovery through voice-based AI symptom tracking and personalised rehabilitation

Long COVID is an illness that has affected 40% of the world's 478 million survivors of COVID-19.\[6\] 1.3 million people have Long COVID in the UK.\[7\] The condition is highly debilitating can significantly affect mental wellbeing, family, employment, and overall quality of life. Nearly 2 million days are lost in NHS staff absences in England due to Long COVID. There are few apps that are used to manage Long COVID and zero use voice to detect/track symptoms of Long COVID. Although comprehensively covering general rehabilitation principles, existing apps lack Covid-19 specificity. 60% of people over 65, a key risk group, do not use a smartphone. As per the NHS Long COVID plan, we need other ways to reach people equitably to manage Long COVID specifically, support focused Long COVID rehabilitation and outcomes.

This is the focus of our project. DDM, the lead partner of this project, already provides a multi-platform app across devices including voice-based assistants like Alexa, Google Assistant and smart TVs. DDM currently provides support to people receiving care for obesity, type 2 diabetes and dementia. Our platform provides personalised education and behaviour change support using Artificial Intelligence to provide a therapeutic care plan and behavioral nudges to help people sustain positive health behaviors. Our app is available on Amazon's Alexa devices and smart speakers/TVs.

We are partnering with Royal Holloway, University of London who are experts in AI, and Amazon, the maker of smart speakers who is donating Alexa Echo Shows for the project. We plan to adapt our existing best-in-class behavioral change app to monitor the symptoms of Long COVID through communication by voice with our voice-based assistant app on Alexa-enabled devices, and to provide a focused multidisciplinary rehabilitation care plan addressing physical, mental and social needs, and outcomes tracking. To mitigate health inequalities, and as South Asians and Black ethnic backgrounds are at greater risk of Long COVID, we will make the app available in Hindi, Punjabi and Arabic.

This means that young and older people alike will be able to access rehabilitation support tailored to their preferences and language through an intuitive voice-based assistant to help them manage the symptoms of Long COVID through specialist rehabilitation for breathing, strength recovery, and mental wellbeing.