JMIR mHealth and uHealth
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JMIR mHealth and uHealth · Mar 2015
A mobile cloud-based Parkinson's disease assessment system for home-based monitoring.
Parkinson's disease (PD) is the most prevalent movement disorder of the central nervous system, and affects more than 6.3 million people in the world. The characteristic motor features include tremor, bradykinesia, rigidity, and impaired postural stability. Current therapy based on augmentation or replacement of dopamine is designed to improve patients' motor performance but often leads to levodopa-induced adverse effects, such as dyskinesia and motor fluctuation. Clinicians must regularly monitor patients in order to identify these effects and other declines in motor function as soon as possible. Current clinical assessment for Parkinson's is subjective and mostly conducted by brief observations made during patient visits. Changes in patients' motor function between visits are hard to track and clinicians are not able to make the most informed decisions about the course of therapy without frequent visits. Frequent clinic visits increase the physical and economic burden on patients and their families. ⋯ The key contribution of this study was building a mobile PD assessment and monitoring system to extend current PD assessment based in the clinic setting to the home-based environment. The results of this study proved feasibility and a promising future for utilizing mobile technology in PD management.
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JMIR mHealth and uHealth · Feb 2015
An effective support system of emergency medical services with tablet computers.
There were over 5,000,000 ambulance dispatches during 2010 in Japan, and the time for transportation has been increasing, it took over 37 minutes from dispatch to the hospitals. A way to reduce transportation time by ambulance is to shorten the time of searching for an appropriate facility/hospital during the prehospital phase. Although the information system of medical institutions and emergency medical service (EMS) was established in 2003 in Saga Prefecture, Japan, it has not been utilized efficiently. The Saga Prefectural Government renewed the previous system in an effort to make it the real-time support system that can efficiently manage emergency demand and acceptance for the first time in Japan in April 2011. ⋯ The transportation time by ambulance was shorter following the implementation of the tablet computer in the current support system of EMS in Saga Prefecture, Japan. The cloud computing reduced the cost of the EMS system.
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JMIR mHealth and uHealth · Jan 2015
Home Telehealth Video Conferencing: Perceptions and Performance.
The Flinders Telehealth in the Home trial (FTH trial), conducted in South Australia, was an action research initiative to test and evaluate the inclusion of telehealth services and broadband access technologies for palliative care patients living in the community and home-based rehabilitation services for the elderly at home. Telehealth services at home were supported by video conferencing between a therapist, nurse or doctor, and a patient using the iPad tablet. ⋯ These results showed that the quality of video conferencing when using 3G-based mobile data services instead of broadband fiber-based services was less due to failed calls, audio/ video jitter, and video pixilation during the telehealth sessions. Nevertheless, clinicians felt able to deliver effective services to patients at home using 3G-based mobile data services.
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JMIR mHealth and uHealth · Jan 2015
The Prevalence and Characteristics of Emergency Medicine Patient Use of New Media.
Little is known about "new media" use, defined as media content created or consumed on demand on an electronic device, by patients in emergency department (ED) settings. The application of this technology has the potential to enhance health care beyond the index visit. ⋯ There is a critical mass of ED patients who use new media. Older persons are less comfortable texting and using smartphone apps. Income status has a positive relationship with smartphone ownership and use of smartphone apps. Regardless of income, however, texting and ownership of smartphones was highest for Latinos and black non-Latinos. These findings have implications for expanding health care beyond the ED visit through the use of cell phones, smartphones, texting, the Internet, and health care apps to improve the health of the public.
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JMIR mHealth and uHealth · Jan 2015
Testing the Feasibility and Psychometric Properties of a Mobile Diary (myWHI) in Adolescents and Young Adults With Headaches.
Headaches are prevalent among teens and young adults. Self-monitoring is essential for managing headaches and can be accomplished with the help of electronic headache diaries. An increasing number of electronic headache diaries exist, yet the absence of quality standards compromises their use for research and clinical purposes. ⋯ Our electronic headache diary was shown to be a usable and feasible self-monitoring tool when used by adolescents and young adults with headaches for 14 days. This study provides preliminary support of its psychometric properties. Our diary has the potential for helping users to better understand their headaches and, consequently, to change behaviors to improve self-management of their headaches. Its effectiveness as a component of an intervention will be the focus of future research.