Aplicaciones para celulares: un enfoque de vanguardia para la educación en salud bucal.

While there is an ever increasing use of smartphones in recent times, cellular phone based mobile applications (apps) are hardly used by the public to improve oral health. Hence, this cross-sectional study was conducted to evaluate the features of the current oral health education smart phone apps pertaining to dental patients. Materials and Methods: Oral health terms were queried in the online app stores. Among the apps found, all patient-related apps were listed and categorized. The apps were assessed for type, cost, rating, average number of downloads, involvement of dental professional in their development, target group, local or global applicability, the benefits and drawbacks of the apps and user reviews. Results: A total of 146 oral health apps for patient use were found, with the most common being about techniques for oral hygiene (33.5%) and tooth brushing timers (25.3%). The majority of apps (69.2%) were available for downloading for no cost. ‘Happy teeth, healthy kids app’, ‘Disney Magic timer’ and ‘Happy Kids timer’ were the most downloaded apps. Conclusion: A considerable number of mobile apps are currently available for patients to help them in maintaining oral health, though most of them are brushing timers or demonstrate oral hygiene techniques.Objetivos: Si bien existe un uso cada vez mayor de teléfonos celulares inteligentes en los últimos tiempos, el público apenas utiliza las aplicaciones móviles (aplicaciones) para teléfonos celulares para mejorar la salud bucal. Por lo tanto, este estudio transversal se realizó para evaluar las características de las aplicaciones actuales para teléfonos celulares inteligentes de educación sobre salud bucal desarrollada para el uso de pacientes. Materiales y métodos: se consultaron los términos de salud oral en las tiendas de aplicaciones en línea. Entre las aplicaciones encontradas, todas las aplicaciones relacionadas con el paciente se enumeraron y categorizaron. Las aplicaciones se evaluaron por tipo, costo, calificación, número promedio de descargas, participación de un profesional dental en su desarrollo, grupo objetivo, aplicabilidad local o global, los beneficios y desventajas de las aplicaciones y las revisiones de los usuarios. Resultados: se encontraron un total de 146 aplicaciones de salud bucal para uso de los pacientes, siendo las más comunes sobre técnicas para la higiene bucal (33.5%) y los temporizadores para cepillarse los dientes (25.3%). La mayoría de las aplicaciones (69.2%) estaban disponibles para descargar sin costo. ‘Happy teeth, healthy kids app’, ‘Disney Magic timer’ y ‘Happy Kids timer’ fueron las aplicaciones más descargadas. Conclusión: actualmente hay un número considerable de aplicaciones móviles disponibles para ayudar a mantener la salud bucal de los pacientes, aunque la mayoría de ellas son temporizadores de cepillado dental, o demuestran técnicas de higiene bucal

Smart Diagnosing System Design To Accelerating Early Detection Of Postpartum Blues

Background: Untreated mothers with postpartum blues are at greater risk of severe mental health disorders. At the same time, early detection tools are manually provided and paper-based, and they cannot offer accessible access to center-compiled data despite their lack of priority in mental health services. Methods: Using a mixed-methods study design, the researcher used semi-structured interviews, while the quantitative approach was conducted using demographic questionnaires and a survey resulting from the interviews. A total of 16 participants were chosen for the qualitative study, and 60 respondents participated in the quantitative study. The sample for the study was screened by using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) within the area of Sibela Healthcare Center in Surakarta. Data collection used instrument tests and observation sheets and was analyzed by the Chi-Square statistical test. Results: Quantitative data analyses identified a relationship between age and the incidence of postpartum blues in mothers (p-value of 0.004; OR 0.053). This study showed that mothers aged < 21 and > 35 years old have a 0.067 times higher development of postpartum blues than mothers aged 21-35. Conclusion: Both qualitative and quantitative data suggest that postpartum mothers need support from husbands in overcoming the blues. Mothers and husbands need a comprehensive digital mobile phone service that involves professional health workers, health service providers, and referral systems

A Panoramic Study of Obstructive Sleep Apnea Detection Technologies

This study offers a literature research reference value for bioengineers and practitioner medical doctors. It could reduce research time and improve medical service efficiency regarding Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) detection systems. Much of the past and the current apnea research, the vital signals features and parameters of the SA automatic detection are introduced.The applications for the earlier proposed systems and the related work on real-time and continuous monitoring of OSA and the analysis is given. The study concludes with an assessment of the current technologies highlighting their weaknesses and strengths which can set a roadmap for researchers and clinicians in this rapidly developing field of study

Remote assessment of disease and relapse in major depressive disorder (RADAR-MDD): recruitment, retention, and data availability in a longitudinal remote measurement study

BACKGROUND: Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is prevalent, often chronic, and requires ongoing monitoring of symptoms to track response to treatment and identify early indicators of relapse. Remote Measurement Technologies (RMT) provide an opportunity to transform the measurement and management of MDD, via data collected from inbuilt smartphone sensors and wearable devices alongside app-based questionnaires and tasks. A key question for the field is the extent to which participants can adhere to research protocols and the completeness of data collected. We aimed to describe drop out and data completeness in a naturalistic multimodal longitudinal RMT study, in people with a history of recurrent MDD. We further aimed to determine whether those experiencing a depressive relapse at baseline contributed less complete data. METHODS: Remote Assessment of Disease and Relapse – Major Depressive Disorder (RADAR-MDD) is a multi-centre, prospective observational cohort study conducted as part of the Remote Assessment of Disease and Relapse – Central Nervous System (RADAR-CNS) program. People with a history of MDD were provided with a wrist-worn wearable device, and smartphone apps designed to: a) collect data from smartphone sensors; and b) deliver questionnaires, speech tasks, and cognitive assessments. Participants were followed-up for a minimum of 11 months and maximum of 24 months. RESULTS: Individuals with a history of MDD (n = 623) were enrolled in the study,. We report 80% completion rates for primary outcome assessments across all follow-up timepoints. 79.8% of people participated for the maximum amount of time available and 20.2% withdrew prematurely. We found no evidence of an association between the severity of depression symptoms at baseline and the availability of data. In total, 110 participants had > 50% data available across all data types. CONCLUSIONS: RADAR-MDD is the largest multimodal RMT study in the field of mental health. Here, we have shown that collecting RMT data from a clinical population is feasible. We found comparable levels of data availability in active and passive forms of data collection, demonstrating that both are feasible in this patient group. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12888-022-03753-1

Comparison of self-administered survey questionnaire responses collected using mobile apps versus other methods

Background: Self-administered survey questionnaires are an important data collection tool in clinical practice, public health research and epidemiology. They are ideal for achieving a wide geographic coverage of the target population, dealing with sensitive topics and are less resource intensive than other data collection methods. These survey questionnaires can be delivered electronically, which can maximise the scalability and speed of data collection while reducing cost. In recent years, the use of apps running on consumer smart devices (i.e., smartphones and tablets) for this purpose has received considerable attention. However, variation in the mode of delivering a survey questionnaire could affect the quality of the responses collected. Objectives: To assess the impact that smartphone and tablet apps as a delivery mode have on the quality of survey questionnaire responses compared to any other alternative delivery mode: paper, laptop computer, tablet computer (manufactured before 2007), short message service (SMS) and plastic objects. Search methods: We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, IEEEXplore, Web of Science, CABI: CAB Abstracts, Current Contents Connect, ACM Digital, ERIC, Sociological Abstracts, Health Management Information Consortium, the Campbell Library and CENTRAL. We also searched registers of current and ongoing clinical trials such as ClinicalTrials.gov and the World Health Organization (WHO)International Clinical Trials Registry Platform. We also searched the grey literature in OpenGrey, Mobile Active and ProQuest Dissertation & Theses. Lastly, we searched Google Scholar and the reference lists of included studies and relevant systematic reviews. We performed all searches up to 12 and 13 April 2015. Selection criteria: We included parallel randomised controlled trials (RCTs), crossover trials and paired repeated measures studies that compared the electronic delivery of self-administered survey questionnaires via a smartphone or tablet app with any other delivery mode. We included data obtained from participants completing health-related self-administered survey questionnaire, both validated and non-validated. We also included data offered by both healthy volunteers and by those with any clinical diagnosis. We included studies that reported any of the following outcomes: data equivalence; data accuracy; data completeness; response rates; differences in the time taken to complete a survey questionnaire; differences in respondent’s adherence to the original sampling protocol; and acceptability to respondents of the delivery mode. We included studies that were published in 2007 or after, as devices that became available during this time are compatible with the mobile operating system (OS) framework that focuses on apps. Data collection and analysis: Two review authors independently extracted data from the included studies using a standardised form created for this systematic review in REDCap. They then compared their forms to reach consensus. Through an initial systematic mapping on the included studies, we identified two settings in which survey completion took place: controlled and uncontrolled. These settings differed in terms of (i) the location where surveys were completed, (ii) the frequency and intensity of sampling protocols, and (iii) the level of control over potential confounders (e.g., type of technology, level of help offered to respondents).We conducted a narrative synthesis of the evidence because a meta-analysis was not appropriate due to high levels of clinical and methodological diversity. We reported our findings for each outcome according to the setting in which the studies were conducted. Main results: We included 14 studies (15 records) with a total of 2275 participants; although we included only 2272 participants in the final analyses as there were missing data for three participants from one included study. Regarding data equivalence, in both controlled and uncontrolled settings, the included studies found no significant differences in the mean overall scores between apps and other delivery modes, and that all correlation coefficients exceeded the recommended thresholds for data equivalence. Concerning the time taken to complete a survey questionnaire in a controlled setting, one study found that an app was faster than paper, whereas the other study did not find a significant difference between the two delivery modes. In an uncontrolled setting, one study found that an app was faster than SMS. Data completeness and adherence to sampling protocols were only reported in uncontrolled settings. Regarding the former, an app was found to result in more complete records than paper, and in significantly more data entries than an SMS-based survey questionnaire. Regarding adherence to the sampling protocol, apps may be better than paper but no different from SMS. We identified multiple definitions of acceptability to respondents, with inconclusive results: preference; ease of use; willingness to use a delivery mode; satisfaction; effectiveness of the system informativeness; perceived time taken to complete the survey questionnaire; perceived benefit of a delivery mode; perceived usefulness of a delivery mode; perceived ability to complete a survey questionnaire; maximum length of time that participants would be willing to use a delivery mode; and reactivity to the delivery mode and its successful integration into respondents’ daily routine. Finally, regardless of the study setting, none of the included studies reported data accuracy or response rates. Authors’ conclusions: Our results, based on a narrative synthesis of the evidence, suggest that apps might not affect data equivalence as long as the intended clinical application of the survey questionnaire, its intended frequency of administration and the setting in which it was validated remain unchanged. There were no data on data accuracy or response rates, and findings on the time taken to complete a self-administered survey questionnaire were contradictory. Furthermore, although apps might improve data completeness, there is not enough evidence to assess their impact on adherence to sampling protocols. None of the included studies assessed how elements of user interaction design, survey questionnaire design and intervention design might influence mode effects. Those conducting research in public health and epidemiology should not assume that mode effects relevant to other delivery modes apply to apps running on consumer smart devices. Those conducting methodological research might wish to explore the issues highlighted by this systematic review

Key Trends In Digital Health And The Future Of Clinical Trials In The Us

With the increasing burden of chronic diseases on the global population, many stakeholders see digital health technologies and devices as potential solutions to improve patient self-management of their disease and offer novel treatment methods. Digital health solutions including mobile apps, web-based programs, texting, and connected devices have been applied to a wide variety of diseases. In recent years, interest in digital health technologies has exploded with almost 200 digital health related articles published in PubMed in 2019 alone. In particular, digital health holds great potential in improving and enhancing the traditional clinical trial by increasing patient recruitment and retention and introducing novel assessment and collection methods that shift clinical trials from the physical site to the patients’ home. Digital health is poised to fundamentally shift how clinical trials are conducted. However, serious challenges from potential regulatory restrictions and data privacy issues will need to be addressed before patients, physicians, and other stakeholders can fully realize the benefits of digital health

Mobile Health Technologies

Mobile Health Technologies, also known as mHealth technologies, have emerged, amongst healthcare providers, as the ultimate Technologies-of-Choice for the 21st century in delivering not only transformative change in healthcare delivery, but also critical health information to different communities of practice in integrated healthcare information systems. mHealth technologies nurture seamless platforms and pragmatic tools for managing pertinent health information across the continuum of different healthcare providers. mHealth technologies commonly utilize mobile medical devices, monitoring and wireless devices, and/or telemedicine in healthcare delivery and health research. Today, mHealth technologies provide opportunities to record and monitor conditions of patients with chronic diseases such as asthma, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diseases (COPD) and diabetes mellitus. The intent of this book is to enlighten readers about the theories and applications of mHealth technologies in the healthcare domain

mPeer: A Mobile Health Approach to Monitoring PTSD in Veterans

More than 2.2 million US service members have seen deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade. As the number of veterans returning home has increased, the need for new and innovative approaches to the variety and severity of mental health issues experienced after deployment remains a national priority. Affecting between 15-20\% of the veteran population and largely treatment resistant, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) poses a challenging problem for the mental health community. Recent veteran related studies have suggested a paradigm shift in conceptualizing PTSD in terms of specific high-risk behaviors rather than traditional symptoms. Young and technology savvy, many veteran populations are uniquely poised to embrace mobile health (mHealth) approaches to monitoring and addressing health related issues. In this thesis, we document the design and implementation of a smartphone-based system that coordinates the collection of data potentially relevant for monitoring high-risk behavior in veterans. We describe the details of an unobtrusive smartphone application for the Android platform that collects data from a variety of smartphone sensors and administers daily self-report questionnaires. Finally, we confirm system performance with data from student volunteers