A mobile visual diary for personal pain management

Back-pain is one of the most prolific health problems within the population and costs industry lost revenue due to the amount of days people have to take off in order to recover. In this paper, we have targeted this problem and suggested a mobile app for visually diarizing the pain experience of patients. The Android platform is utilized and its technology stack forms the basis for this 3D centric application. Positive evaluations obtained provide evidence of the promising nature of the approach and indicate several future directions of research within mobile pain management

Feel My Pain: Design and Evaluation of Painpad, a Tangible Device for Supporting Inpatient Self-Logging of Pain

Monitoring patients' pain is a critical issue for clinical caregivers, particularly among staff responsible for providing analgesic relief. However, collecting regularly scheduled pain readings from patients can be difficult and time-consuming for clinicians. In this paper we present Painpad, a tangible device that was developed to allow patients to engage in self-logging of their pain. We report findings from two hospital-based field studies in which Painpad was deployed to a total of 78 inpatients recovering from ambulatory surgery. We find that Painpad results in improved frequency and compliance with pain logging, and that self-logged scores may be more faithful to patients' experienced pain than corresponding scores reported to nurses. We also show that older adults may prefer tangible interfaces over tablet-based alternatives for reporting their pain, and we contribute design lessons for pain logging devices intended for use in hospital settings

PainDroid: An android-based virtual reality application for pain assessment

Earlier studies in the field of pain research suggest that little efficient intervention currently exists in response to the exponential increase in the prevalence of pain. In this paper, we present an Android application (PainDroid) with multimodal functionality that could be enhanced with Virtual Reality (VR) technology, which has been designed for the purpose of improving the assessment of this notoriously difficult medical concern. Pain- Droid has been evaluated for its usability and acceptability with a pilot group of potential users and clinicians, with initial results suggesting that it can be an effective and usable tool for improving the assessment of pain. Participant experiences indicated that the application was easy to use and the potential of the application was similarly appreciated by the clinicians involved in the evaluation. Our findings may be of considerable interest to healthcare providers, policy makers, and other parties that might be actively involved in the area of pain and VR research

Designing assisted living technologies 'in the wild' : preliminary experiences with cultural probe methodology

Background There is growing interest in assisted living technologies to support independence at home. Such technologies should ideally be designed ‘in the wild’ i.e. taking account of how real people live in real homes and communities. The ATHENE (Assistive Technologies for Healthy Living in Elders: Needs Assessment by Ethnography) project seeks to illuminate the living needs of older people and facilitate the co-production with older people of technologies and services. This paper describes the development of a cultural probe tool produced as part of the ATHENE project and how it was used to support home visit interviews with elders with a range of ethnic and social backgrounds, family circumstances, health conditions and assisted living needs. Method Thirty one people aged 60 to 98 were visited in their homes on three occasions. Following an initial interview, participants were given a set of cultural probe materials, including a digital camera and the ‘Home and Life Scrapbook’ to complete in their own time for one week. Activities within the Home and Life Scrapbook included maps (indicating their relationships to people, places and objects), lists (e.g. likes, dislikes, things they were concerned about, things they were comfortable with), wishes (things they wanted to change or improve), body outline (indicating symptoms or impairments), home plan (room layouts of their homes to indicate spaces and objects used) and a diary. After one week, the researcher and participant reviewed any digital photos taken and the content of the Home and Life Scrapbook as part of the home visit interview. Findings The cultural probe facilitated collection of visual, narrative and material data by older people, and appeared to generate high levels of engagement from some participants. However, others used the probe minimally or not at all for various reasons including limited literacy, physical problems (e.g. holding a pen), lack of time or energy, limited emotional or psychological resources, life events, and acute illness. Discussions between researchers and participants about the materials collected (and sometimes about what had prevented them completing the tasks) helped elicit further information relevant to assisted living technology design. The probe materials were particularly helpful when having conversations with non-English speaking participants through an interpreter. Conclusions Cultural probe methods can help build a rich picture of the lives and experiences of older people to facilitate the co-production of assisted living technologies. But their application may be constrained by the participant’s physical, mental and emotional capacity. They are most effective when used as a tool to facilitate communication and development of a deeper understanding of older people’s needs

Project HealthDesign: Rethinking the Power and Potential of Personal Health Records: Round One Final Report

Describes an initiative to develop prototypes for next-generation personal health record applications on a common platform focused on self-management for better health. Outlines grantees' prototypes for user-centered daily monitoring and lessons learned

Ambulatory assessment in neuropsychology : applications in multiple sclerosis research

Peer reviewedPostprin

Collecting Data from Children Ages 9-13

Provides a summary of literature on common methods used to collect data, such as diaries, interviews, observational methods, and surveys. Analyzes age group-specific considerations, advantages, and drawbacks, with tips for improving data quality

Diagnostic mHealth for Autoimmune Disorders

Many mobile applications on the market can help patients record symptoms and progression of their illnesses, and among them, many help to document autoimmune disorders. In this article, I\u27ve used the content analysis method to analyze the existing relevant apps in the Apple App Store. My results reveal an important design gap, in that there is almost no app that allows patients to communicate with their doctors in a timely manner and accurately record their week to week, month to month medical condition. This article presents the smartphone app I developed based on the iOS operating system to fill this gap, allowing patients to journal about their pain conditions in real time, communicate with doctors online, and generate personalized custom reports. In developing this app, I designed a series of user interface prototypes as my idea evolved. I also surveyed physicians and used their feedback to modify my design and give it further theoretical support. Then I conducted usability testing with participants who have undiagnosed chronic pain or autoimmune disorders. I found that this app improved doctor/patient communication and allowed patients to be more anatomically accurate as to the source of their pain when recording their condition. My design strives to make up for market vacancies and cater to user needs. Through three generations of prototyping, communicating with professionals and conducting effective user testing, I arrived at a final design prototype. This project aims to contribute to the healthcare field by bringing new design inspiration to user experience and user interface design

My Crohn’s disease on real-time information - User experience improvement through cross-platform applications

Reducing hospital institutionalization of citizen with chronic diseases is a major priority of western countries priorities. The more complex the health condition, the harder it is to coordinate clinical care. To improve the disease management and control, most patients need to use mobile applications that are available in online stores or web services because of the difficulty that a personal mobile phone has to get real time access to clinical data outside of a hospital. In terms of IBD - Inflammatory Bowel Disease - existing mobile phone solutions are very complex, because visually the interfaces communicates with the user through inadequate use of symbols in clinical features, which are inconsistent and have poor legibility. They also presents a lack of visual optimization between multiplatform systems. This increases the user's learning curve in terms of how to interpret and interact with these systems, generating an opportunity for these patients with abilities to innovate through the creation and development of solutions that solve their own problems related to the management and coordination of the disease. This thesis aims to analysis IBD patients behaviour related to disease management, identify the type of problems, both functional and communication, which occur in existing IBD m-Health and e-Health systems, and introduces two topics – communication and design studies – in the "User Innovator" model of Von Hippel (1976) which consists of users, that are, for example, patients with chronic diseases, and who innovate by creating solutions to solve personal problems because of unfavourable healthcare conditions. To validate in the design process the three perspectives – design, innovation and patient – were considered, and the framework “Human-social Interaction Model for e-Health Interfaces” was created, enabling a sustainable approach to research, with inputs from personal experience being used, introducing relevant feedback for the final goal of the preliminary studies, when creating the interface for mobile phone application particularly for Crohn’s disease, one of the IBD, with a new healthcare user experience. To reach the objective, a set of studies were conducted that were divided into two stages. The first, a literature review of the relationship between semiotics and interactive communication; the meaning of symbolic representation in interactive projects; new design research guidelines that define interfaces and features and that are more approachable for users; user perspectives towards technology for health supporting and controlling; the design and communication space on technological projects; the challenge for users/ patients who try to create systems to solve personal problems. The second part, presents the practical research that includes a survey of 279 participants with IBD; the empirical analysis of six case studies – mobile applications and multiplatform: context, features, design principles lifting, and usability testing A/B with the design features and principles of design on two of the six systems being compared. The results from the thesis challenge the concepts of mobile interface usability in health, providing users with a structured interpretation of medical information design and a guideline for designers with chronic diseases that would like to create solutions to monitor health problems.Reduzir a institucionalização hospitalar de cidadãos com doenças crónicas é uma das prioridades para os países ocidentais. Quanto maior for a complexidade das condições de saúde, mais difícil se torna a coordenação dos cuidados clínicos. Para melhorar o controle e a gestão da doença, a maioria destes pacientes recorre às aplicações para telemóvel disponíveis em lojas online e aos serviços na web pois, é difícil obter permissão para aceder a dados clínicos em tempo real no telemóvel pessoal a partir do hospital. No contexto da DII – Doença Inflamatória do Intestino – as soluções existentes apresentam níveis de complexidade visual elevados pois, a interface comunica com o utilizador através de símbolos clínicos inadequados em funcionalidades convencionais – fraca legibilidade e inconsistência; Apresenta também, fraca coerência visual entre sistemas multiplataforma. Estes cenários promovem no utilizador, um aumento da curva de aprendizagem relativamente à forma como estes interagem com os sistemas criando assim, uma abertura para o desenvolvimento de soluções pelos que têm habilidade para inovar através da criação e desenvolvimento de sistemas que resolvem os seus problemas com a gestão e coordenação da doença. Esta tese tem como objetivo analisar o comportamento dos pacientes com DII relativamente à gestão da sua doença. Identificar que tipo de problemas – funcionais e de comunicação – existem nas soluções atuais para telemóvel e web no contexto da DII, introduzindo novos temas – estudos em comunicação e design – no modelo "User Innovator" de Von Hippel (1976) que consiste em, utilizadores, como por exemplo, pacientes com doenças crónicas, que inovam ao criarem soluções para resolver os problemas pessoais, tais como, condições de saúde adversas. Para validar no processo de design a integração das três áreas – design, inovação e paciente – criamos a framework “Human-social Interaction Model for e-Health Interfaces” que nos permitiu uma abordagem sustentável à investigação, quando foram aplicados inputs provenientes de experiência pessoal das três perspectivas introduzindo feedback relevante para o objetivo final dos estudos preliminares, também quando criada a interface para dispositivos móveis focada na doença de Crohn, uma das DII, com uma nova experiência de utilizador na área da saúde. Para atingir o objectivo, realizou-se um conjunto de estudos que se encontram divididos em dois momentos: o primeiro, com revisão de literatura sobre a relação da semiótica com a comunicação interativa; o significado da representação simbólica em projetos interativos; as novas linhas de reflexão do Design que definem interfaces e funcionalidades mais próximas do utilizador; a perspectiva dos utilizadores perante a tecnologia como meio de suporte e controle da saúde; o espaço do design e da comunicação em projetos tecnológicos; o desafio para utilizadores/ pacientes que tentam criar sistemas para solucionar problemas pessoais. A segunda parte apresenta a investigação de campo com, um inquérito a 279 participantes com DII; análise empírica de seis casos de estudo – aplicações para telemóvel e multiplataforma: contexto, funcionalidades, levantamento de princípios do design, e testes de usabilidade A/B onde comparamos em dois dos seis sistemas, a articulação entre as funcionalidades e os princípios do design. Os resultados obtidos desafiam a usabilidade das interfaces para telemóvel no contexto da saúde, proporcionando aos utilizadores uma interpretação mais coerente do ponto de vista formal do design de informação médica e um caminho para designers com doenças crónicas que pretendem criar soluções para resolver problemas de monotorização da saúde