Sensing chronic pain in the wild

Sensor data can enrich longitudinal and cross-sectional research with systematic assessment of many key variables, enhancing the study of factors such as stress, mood, physical activity, sleep, social interaction, and pain related behaviours that can be disabling.

Within the Consortium to Research Individual, Interpersonal and Social Influences in Pain (CRIISP), the research team at UCL aims to examine the feasibility of using different wearable devices for the daily capture of multimodal data from people with chronic pain.  Wearable sensors will capture some or all of movement, posture/position, type of physical activity and its intensity; emotional states; social interactions; and geolocation. Sensor data will be used to model the recognition and prediction of key psychosocial variables connected with the experience of pain and its exacerbation.

This 4-year project is funded by a joint and equal investment from UKRI [MR/W004151/1] and the charity Versus Arthritis [22891] through the Advanced Pain Discovery Platform (APDP) initiative

Research Team

• Professor Amanda CdC Williams (UCL PI)
• Professor Nadia Berthouze
• Dr Diego Vitali