AP-NURSE: A Modular Tool to Ease the Life of Patients Suffering from Cognitive Diseases
, Jakub Lüley 1, Marian Vojs 1,*, Martin Vrška 1, Miroslav Behúl 1, Jozef Bendík 1, Matej Cenký 1, František Janíček 1, Libor Majer 2 and Gábor Gyepes 2
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript delves into the development and testing of a monitoring tool named AP-NURSE which aims to support patients with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases and their caregivers. Developed as part of the Interreg CE niCE-life project, the paper documents the design, development, construction, and testing phases of the tool carried out by the team at STU. The context is set by starting with demographic information regarding Slovakia, emphasizing the challenges brought forth by population aging. The paper delves into the design specifics of the AP-NURSE Home and Care devices and its variants. Importantly, the manuscript provides insights into the rigorous testing procedures employed, both in a controlled laboratory environment at STU and authentic scenarios in healthcare centers located in Bratislava and Warsaw.
The manuscript addresses a salient issue of aging populations and provides a solution tailored for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's patients. The integration of both lab and real-world testing augments the originality of the research, ensuring the tool is viable not only in controlled environments but also in practical applications.
The paper is commendably organized, ensuring a logical flow of information that is easily comprehensible. From a linguistic perspective, the manuscript is devoid of glaring grammatical errors, and the chosen language is both precise and academic.
While the research is scientifically well-composed, the manuscript's structure and content lean more towards a product development report rather than a conventional scientific paper. This might impact its reception by readers expecting a more traditional research focus. However, this distinction does not take away from the relevance and importance of the presented work.
Considering the clear presentation, well-structured content, and the evident value of the AP-NURSE monitoring tool, I recommend the manuscript for publication in its current form.
Author Response
Thank you for the positive review. I am also attaching a graphic abstract that was not in the current version.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Please see the attached.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Thank you for the positive review. I am also attaching a graphic abstract that was not in the current version.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The article submitted for review concerns the support of care for the elderly, with particular emphasis on people suffering from Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. The article presents a rather cursory structure of the developed systems, focusing on the analysis of systemic problems. There is a clear lack of a more detailed description of the sensors used and the reasons for which they were chosen.
The presented material is interesting, however, it leaves a certain insufficiency related to the cursory description of the hardware part.
Looking at the system side, the article meets all expectations in this regard, but it seems reasonable to expand its scope a bit with the hardware part.
Author Response
Thank you for your comments and positive review. We will not present a more in-depth description of HW from the point of view of presenting wiring diagrams and PCB design, due to our efforts to commercialize these products, which would significantly reduce our chances of success. The description of the HW composition is described in detail in section 2, where the individual hw parts are described from the point of view of the MCU multiplatform application (ESP32, ESP8266). Detailed information on the sensors used is shown in Tab. 2, where there is a complete list of sensors used in AP Nurse. The choice was based on the relevance of their use (Fig.2) and of course the easy availability and price of the sensor on the market. If you request more detailed information about wiring diagrams and PCB design, we are willing to send them to you for evaluation, but we cannot use them in the article. Thank you in advance for understanding our situation.
I am also attaching a graphic abstract that was not in the current version.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
Understanding the authors' arguments about the potential commercialization of the developed system, I suggest accepting the article for publication in its current version.
