Providing case-based retrieval as a decision support strategy in time dependent medical domains

Case-based Reasoning (CBR), and more specifically case-based retrieval, is recently being recognized as a valuable decision support methodology in "time dependent" medical domains, i.e. in all domains in which the observed phenomenon dynamics have to be dealt with. However, adopting CBR in these applications is non trivial, since the need for describing the process dynamics impacts both on case representation and on the retrieval activity itself. The aim of this chapter is the one of analysing the different methodologies introduced in the literature in order to implement time dependent medical CBR applications, with a particular emphasis on time series representation and retrieval. Among the others, a novel approach, which relies on Temporal Abstractions for time series dimensionality reduction, is analysed in depth, and illustrated by means of a case study in haemodialysis.