Smartphone apps may aid home rheumatoid arthritis monitoring
Using built-in accelerometer for research
Another approach to harnessing smartphone technology is being taken by researchers at the University of Southampton (England), where engineering postgraduate student Jimmy Caroupapoulle and his collaborators are working on an app that continually uses the built-in sensors in a phone to detect movements, and thus how physically active someone is.
“What we are trying to achieve is to develop an application that can just run in the background so people do not have to do too much,” Mr. Caroupapoulle explained in an interview around his poster presentation.
Using the app, called RApp, patients will be able to answer daily questions based on existing tools (RAPID3 and MDHAQ) to record their levels of pain, joint inflammation, and physical activity. The latter would be recorded via the phone’s onboard accelerometer to give a more objective view of whether the patient is moving around, as well as the patient’s speed in getting up from a seated position. The app collects data using the 28-joint Disease Activity Score so an indication of the severity of joint pain or inflammation can be assessed.
The aim is to give the patients the power to monitor themselves but also to facilitate discussion with their physicians. Data from the app will be integrated into an online portal so that patients and their doctors can see the information provided.
So far, 5 patients with RA have tested the application and the next stage is to release the application to a wider group, perhaps 20 patients, Mr. Caroupapoulle said.
“There are lots of apps out there, but this is something that looks at the quality of movement.” consultant rheumatologist Christopher Edwards, MD, a member of the team behind the RApp, said in an interview.
As opposed to pedometers or other devices that monitor physical activity to varying degrees of accuracy, RApp looks at how people accelerate as they stand up or move, which can be important for those with arthritis, and how that relates to their disease activity, said Dr. Edwards, professor of rheumatology at the University of Southampton.
“You can’t guarantee that someone always had their phone in their hand or in their bag,” Dr. Edwards said, “so what you want to do is get a sample from time during the day that gives you an overall representation, even if that is a very short period, just once during the day, then we’ll see if that makes a difference over time and whether that correlates with someone’s disease activity.”
The REMORA study is sponsored by Arthritis Research UK and the National Institute of Health Research Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care Greater Manchester. RApp is being developed without commercial funding. Dr. Austin, Dr. Dixon, Mr. Caroupapoulle, and Dr. Edwards stated they had no conflicts of interest.
