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Technology for Remote Health Monitoring in An Older Population
Multiple sclerosis is a condition of neurological disorder. It is a very common disorder in the world and causes disability among many young people (Dobson &Giovannoni, 2019). The people with multiple sclerosis (MS) face many mental, emotional, and physical challenges daily. There are many mobiles or Google assisted technologies that help in the health care of patients with multiple sclerosis and other health issues. They not only reduce human efforts but also provide more comfortable scanning equipment and better monitoring systems ensuring quality care to the patient. According to Marrie et al. (2019), the technologies in healthcare provide patient-centered care to the patient and the patient can enjoy quality life with the help of these technologies in his/her healthcare. This essay will discuss the Google technologies/products that help in providing health care to a patient with multiple sclerosis. The latter sections will also discuss Google products with their description and application of those on multiple sclerosis patients as well.
According to Apolinário-Hagen et al. (2108), mobile or Google technology and products can help in various ways to help a patient with multiple sclerosis. These m-applications or mobile applications ensure that the patient with such a serious health issue has adhered to management band treatment regimens. These apps contain various features like information on the disease symptoms, treatments, and other related information. They also provide various other helps to the patient like tracking injection sites, managing medication, sending reports to health care professionals, recording symptoms, and recording daily mental and physical status. The uses of these products enable the patients to have increased access to medical care services, save their time that was earlier invested in visits to the physicians, and feel independent. According to Van Kessel et al. (2017), the other benefits that are received on using Google assisted products by a patient living with multiple sclerosis at home are – the ability to communicate with other patients of MS, improved efficiency of MS administrative tasks, usefulness for monitoring MS, communication with healthcare professionals, and easy access to MS information. A patient with multiple sclerosis suffers from various symptoms like cognitive deficits, limitation of mobility, sleep disturbances, pain, and fatigue. To deal with these symptoms by gaining more information about them and treatment care plans these apps provide useful information for the same. According to Winberg et al. (2017), the general MS self-management apps provide help through various features of these products like medical events entry, motion management, daily status monitoring (e.g. MS self app), a special symptom control (e.g. Life and MS app), medication management (e.g. MS Explorer app), and injection management (e.g. my multiple sclerosis diary apps). However, these technologies and products are not used according to their ratings because ratings do not provide any reliable basis to trust them. Many people across the world use different applications or products according to their compatibility and ease of using such products or applications (Babbage et al., 2019). This approach ensures patient-centered care for the patient, so it promotes evidence-based healthcare to the patient. All these factors collectively result in improved and better health care services to the patient.
Many Google products ensure health care services to multiple sclerosis patients. According to Gromisch et al. (2020), My MS Diary is a free app and it is an android app so it is compatible with phones or computers. As the injection is a part of life in the MS patient’s life so this app enables the following things for the patient - provide a reminder when it’s time to reorder, give alerts for removing the medication from the fridge, and track your injection sites. As it is a handy tool that keeps the track of various points so the patient can keep the track of those points and later on discuss all those points with the doctors without forgetting or missing any information. Another technology - MS Buddy is an iPhone and android application that also free to access. This Google product helps the patient to get connected to the other MS community patient and get insight bout the latest MS-related researches. According to Dupuis &Tsotsos(2018), The MyMST Team is an iPhone and android application that free to access. This app is also similar to that of MS Buddy in terms of its features. Another technology is –CareZone – it is similar to a personal pocket assistant for MS patients. It has an inbuilt calendar for appointment tracking, a journal feature for tracking symptoms, and keeps the information about the patient secure. According to Manohar et al. (2018), The MS Diagnosis and Management – it has diagnostic tools for all the stages of multiple sclerosis. This enables the patients to perform their diagnosis routinely without any wastage of time even at home or anywhere outside the hospital. Therefore, these products provide a modern tool for patients living with multiple sclerosis to improve self-management of their conditions. These apps, applications, or modern technology enable the improvement of the patients and help their adherence to disease management and therapeutic management strategies.
According to Dobson &Giovannoni (2019), multiple sclerosis is a disease in which the protective covering of the nerves is eaten away by the immune system of the individual. This ends up the patient with disrupted communication between the body and the brain. The symptoms are pain, vision loss, and impaired coordination. So such patients are treated with medications – immunosuppressive drugs, steroids, and anti-inflammatory administrations via injections or tablets. There are physical therapies also to treat such patients. If Google products are used then the patient can be independent and perform self-care even at home or anywhere outside hospitals. Few of the products are discussed in upper sections and out of those, the three products like My MS Diary, CareZone, and MS Diagnosis and Management, if are used by the patient then it can make the life of multiple sclerosis patients much easy. My MS Diary will help the patient about his medications by sending him alerts for his medications to take them out of the fridge, alerts to take them, track of injection sites. As an MS patient often forgets about things like his dosage and medicines so, CareZone will help him to keep all these under alert control reminder and a track record (Manohar et al., 2019). MS Diagnosis and Management enables the patient to track his/her appointment timings so that the patient visits his/her doctors on time and do not miss the sessions. Moreover, these also provide the opportunity for the patient to keep all his/her information safe with him/her all the time as a pocket assistant. These ensure that patients correctly and properly take the medications and at the proper time, routinely check his progress and symptoms and get information also regarding the disease. This provides complete, comprehensive, and quality care to the patient as he/she is virtually connected to his doctors and can get any assistance anywhere anytime (Marrie et al. 2019).
The nurses can also play a major role by conducting a survey either online or offline to collect the reviews and experiences of the patients after using Google products. The feedback will provide useful information about the changes if any required by the patient in any of the features or with any of the products. All the collected information will be sent to the concerned higher authorities in health care from different hospitals or healthcare service centers. They will in turn share the information with the information technology (IT) and artificial intelligence (AI) departments to get the changes addresses that are being requested by the patients. The changes like updates time-to-time with the products or language assistance so that every patient across the world can use without facing any language barriers. According to Panch et al. (2019), the role of AI and IT in healthcare is very important as they make the use of computers and technology more fruitful in solving the problems of health care. The use of technology for treating and diagnosing the symptoms of serious disease is ensuring effective and continued care services to patients across the world. The involvement of IT and AI in healthcare always helps in meeting the needs and demands of the patient, healthcare providers, and other related people in healthcare. This reduces time and efforts at every end but increases the effective delivery of quality care to the patients. Therefore, effective communication among the nurses and patients will result in better feedback that can be used at later stages to provide the patient with reduced errors, increased patient safety, and delivery of improved quality care. Furthermore, this also provides coordination of care, improved healthcare practices, and enable the tracking of data over time to generate evidence-based health care services.
The mobile or Google technology and products can help in various ways to help a patient with multiple sclerosis. This approach ensures patient-centered care for the patient, so it promotes evidence-based healthcare to the patient. These apps, applications, or modern technology enable the improvement of the patients and help their adherence to disease management and therapeutic management strategies. If Google products are used then the patient can be independent and perform self-care even at home or anywhere outside hospitals. Some of these Google assisted products are like My MS Diary, CareZone, MS Diagnosis and Management, and many others. These provide much-featured help to the patients like tracking of records, information on disease symptoms, diagnosis, and alerts for medication management. Many other benefits are provided to the patient even when the patient is at his/her home or anywhere outside the hospital. However, AI and IT can also help in the improvement of the services in healthcare to patients across the world.
References for Google Technology in Multiple Sclerosis
Apolinário-Hagen, J., Menzel, M., Hennemann, S., &Salewski, C. (2018). Acceptance of mobile health apps for disease management among people with multiple sclerosis: Web-based survey study. JMIR Formative Research, 2(2), e11977.
Babbage, D. R., van Kessel, K., Drown, J., Thomas, S., Sezier, A., Thomas, P., &Kersten, P. (2019). MS energize: Field trial of an app for self-management of fatigue for people with multiple sclerosis. Internet Interventions, 18, 100291.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.invent.2019.100291
Dobson, R., &Giovannoni, G. (2019).Multiple sclerosis–A review. European Journal of Neurology, 26(1), 27-40.https://doi.org/10.1111/ene.13819
Dupuis, K., &Tsotsos, L. E. (2018). Technology for remote health monitoring in an older population: A role for mobile devices. Multimodal Technologies and Interaction, 2(3), 43.https://doi.org/10.3390/mti2030043
Gromisch, E. S., Turner, A. P., Leipertz, S. L., Beauvais, J., &Haselkorn, J. K. (2020). Who is not coming to clinic? A predictive model of excessive missed appointments in persons with multiple sclerosis. Multiple Sclerosis and Related Disorders, 38, 101513.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.msard.2019.101513
Manohar, N., Perkins, T., Laurion, R., & Oliver, B. (2019). Patient-reported outcomes in multiple sclerosis: An overview. Journal of Clinical Outcomes Management, 26(6), 277-288.
Marrie, R. A., Leung, S., Tyry, T., Cutter, G. R., Fox, R., & Salter, A. (2019).Use of eHealth and mHealth technology by persons with multiple sclerosis. Multiple Sclerosis and Related Disorders, 27, 13-19.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.msard.2018.09.036
Panch, T., Mattie, H., &Celi, L. A. (2019).The “inconvenient truth” about AI in healthcare. Npj Digital Medicine, 2(1), 1-3.
Van Kessel, K., Babbage, D. R., Reay, N., Miner-Williams, W. M., &Kersten, P. (2017). Mobile technology use by people experiencing multiple sclerosis fatigue: A survey methodology. JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 5(2), e6.
Winberg, C., Kylberg, M., Pettersson, C., Harnett, T., Hedvall, P. O., &Mattsson, T. (2017).The use of apps for health in persons with multiple sclerosis, parkinson's disease and stroke-barriers and facilitators. Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, 242, 638-641.
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