by Liz Ahlberg
A screenshot of the GaitTrack app, which monitors how heart and lung patients walk, a key metric for physicians. Credit: Bruce Schatz
(Medical Xpress)—By simply carrying around their cellphones, patients who suffer from chronic disease could soon have an accurate health monitor that warns their doctors when their symptoms worsen.
GaitTrack, an app developed by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the U. of I. at Chicago, turns a smartphone into a sophisticated medical device. Unlike other apps that merely count steps, GaitTrack uses eight motion parameters to perform a detailed analysis of a person's gait, or walking pattern, which can tell physicians much about a patient's cardiopulmonary, muscular and neurological health.
Led by Bruce Schatz, the head of medical information science and a professor of computer science at the U. of I., the team published its findings in the journal Telemedicine and e-Health.
"Fitness apps and devices are tuned for healthy people," said Schatz, who also is affiliated with the Institute for Genomic Biology at the U. of I. "They cannot accurately measure patients with chronic disease, who are the biggest medical market. A pedometer is not a medical device. But a cheap phone with GaitTrack software is."
According to Schatz, gait is sometimes called the "sixth vital sign" – after temperature, blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rate and blood oxygen level. Gait speed involves several systems of the body working together in coordination, so changes in gait can be a sign of trouble in one or more systems.
Doctors often use an assessment called the six-minute walk test for patients with heart and lung disease, such as congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma. Patients with chronic disease often cannot be measured with typical pedometers since they tend to walk with shorter, more careful strides, or to shuffle, so specialized medical accelerometers are used.
The Illinois team used GaitTrack to administer six-minute walk tests to 30 patients with chronic lung disease and found that it monitored more accurately – and more cheaply – than the medical accelerometers. In addition, they discovered that analysis of the gait data could predict lung function with 90 percent accuracy, within an age group.
"The original plan was just to validate the software against the standard medical walk test," Schatz said, "but we looked at other data and found that it matched well with a pulmonary function test called FEV1. Predicting FEV1 is useful because that's the standard number used to determine treatment. That's worth a lot to a health system."
Schatz envisions the GaitTrack app running constantly in the background as a patient carries a phone. The phone would periodically collect data, analyze it and keep tabs on the patient's status, alerting the patient or patient's doctor when it detects changes in gait that would indicate a decline in health so that treatment could be adjusted responsively.
The researchers now are testing GaitTrack in larger trials within health systems. Schatz hopes to have the app available for download within months.
"Population health measurement is the key to making health care viable. If you could just measure what people were doing all the time, then you could get enough information to make rational decisions," Schatz said.
Explore further: 'Smart glasses' can improve gait of Parkinson's patients
More information: "Health Monitors for Chronic Disease by Gait Analysis with Mobile Phones." JuenJoshua, ChengQian, Prieto-CenturionValentin, KrishnanJerry A., and SchatzBruce. Telemedicine and e-Health. DOI: 10.1089/tmj.2014.0025. http://ift.tt/1kWzHVF
Medical Xpress on facebook
Related Stories
'Smart glasses' can improve gait of Parkinson's patients
Oct 16, 2013
A new app for intelligent glasses, such as Google Glass, will soon make it possible to improve the gait of patients suffering from Parkinson's disease and to decrease their risk of falling. Researchers at the University of ...
A device to prevent falls in the elderly
Jan 17, 2014
The EPFL spin-off Gait Up just put an extremely thin motion sensor on the market. It can detect the risk of a fall in an older person and is equally useful for sports and physical therapy.
Medicine goes mobile with smartphone apps, devices
Feb 19, 2014
Thanks to smartphones, email, video games and photo sharing are available at the touch of a finger. But attach a special case and that same phone can produce an electrocardiogram (EKG) from the electrical ...
FDA lays out rules for some smartphone health apps (Update)
Sep 23, 2013
Food and Drug Administration officials say they will begin regulating a new wave of applications and gadgets that work with smartphones to take medical readings and help users monitor their health.
Heads up, phones down when walking
Mar 14, 2014
(Medical Xpress)—Cellphone usage while driving is a widely known danger which has led to bans across the globe. Using a cellphone while walking, however, initially seemed to be an innocuous behavior … ...
Recommended for you
Racist attitudes and beliefs affect medical treatment of US minority groups
23 minutes ago
Patients from minority ethnic groups in the US may be facing racist attitudes and beliefs that can unintentionally affect their treatment, a review of healthcare providers has found.
Coca-cola to cut controversial substance from beverages
2 hours ago
(HealthDay)—A controversial ingredient will be removed from many of Coca-Cola's citrus-flavored drinks, the company says.
Uruguay's president signs marijuana legalization rules
2 hours ago
Uruguay's President Jose Mujica on Tuesday signed off on regulations for his country's landmark legalization of its marijuana market.
Exercise could help disabled people, but too few are active, CDC reports
13 hours ago
(HealthDay)—Half of the 21 million Americans who have a disability don't exercise, and that lack of exercise is jeopardizing their health, federal officials reported Tuesday.
Number of US elderly will double by 2050, report says
13 hours ago
(HealthDay)— There will be almost twice as many elderly Americans in 2050 as there are now, posing serious issues for the nation's health care system, according to two U.S. Census Bureau reports released ...
Black male incarceration can compromise research studies
14 hours ago
Federal restrictions on including prisoners in medical research have negatively impacted research involving black men, who are disproportionately imprisoned, according to a study by Yale School of Medicine ...
User comments
© Medical Xpress 2011-2014, Science X network
by Liz Ahlberg
A screenshot of the GaitTrack app, which monitors how heart and lung patients walk, a key metric for physicians. Credit: Bruce Schatz
(Medical Xpress)—By simply carrying around their cellphones, patients who suffer from chronic disease could soon have an accurate health monitor that warns their doctors when their symptoms worsen.
GaitTrack, an app developed by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the U. of I. at Chicago, turns a smartphone into a sophisticated medical device. Unlike other apps that merely count steps, GaitTrack uses eight motion parameters to perform a detailed analysis of a person's gait, or walking pattern, which can tell physicians much about a patient's cardiopulmonary, muscular and neurological health.
Led by Bruce Schatz, the head of medical information science and a professor of computer science at the U. of I., the team published its findings in the journal Telemedicine and e-Health.
"Fitness apps and devices are tuned for healthy people," said Schatz, who also is affiliated with the Institute for Genomic Biology at the U. of I. "They cannot accurately measure patients with chronic disease, who are the biggest medical market. A pedometer is not a medical device. But a cheap phone with GaitTrack software is."
According to Schatz, gait is sometimes called the "sixth vital sign" – after temperature, blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rate and blood oxygen level. Gait speed involves several systems of the body working together in coordination, so changes in gait can be a sign of trouble in one or more systems.
Doctors often use an assessment called the six-minute walk test for patients with heart and lung disease, such as congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma. Patients with chronic disease often cannot be measured with typical pedometers since they tend to walk with shorter, more careful strides, or to shuffle, so specialized medical accelerometers are used.
The Illinois team used GaitTrack to administer six-minute walk tests to 30 patients with chronic lung disease and found that it monitored more accurately – and more cheaply – than the medical accelerometers. In addition, they discovered that analysis of the gait data could predict lung function with 90 percent accuracy, within an age group.
"The original plan was just to validate the software against the standard medical walk test," Schatz said, "but we looked at other data and found that it matched well with a pulmonary function test called FEV1. Predicting FEV1 is useful because that's the standard number used to determine treatment. That's worth a lot to a health system."
Schatz envisions the GaitTrack app running constantly in the background as a patient carries a phone. The phone would periodically collect data, analyze it and keep tabs on the patient's status, alerting the patient or patient's doctor when it detects changes in gait that would indicate a decline in health so that treatment could be adjusted responsively.
The researchers now are testing GaitTrack in larger trials within health systems. Schatz hopes to have the app available for download within months.
"Population health measurement is the key to making health care viable. If you could just measure what people were doing all the time, then you could get enough information to make rational decisions," Schatz said.
Explore further: 'Smart glasses' can improve gait of Parkinson's patients
More information: "Health Monitors for Chronic Disease by Gait Analysis with Mobile Phones." JuenJoshua, ChengQian, Prieto-CenturionValentin, KrishnanJerry A., and SchatzBruce. Telemedicine and e-Health. DOI: 10.1089/tmj.2014.0025. http://ift.tt/1kWzHVF
Medical Xpress on facebook
Related Stories
'Smart glasses' can improve gait of Parkinson's patients
Oct 16, 2013
A new app for intelligent glasses, such as Google Glass, will soon make it possible to improve the gait of patients suffering from Parkinson's disease and to decrease their risk of falling. Researchers at the University of ...
A device to prevent falls in the elderly
Jan 17, 2014
The EPFL spin-off Gait Up just put an extremely thin motion sensor on the market. It can detect the risk of a fall in an older person and is equally useful for sports and physical therapy.
Medicine goes mobile with smartphone apps, devices
Feb 19, 2014
Thanks to smartphones, email, video games and photo sharing are available at the touch of a finger. But attach a special case and that same phone can produce an electrocardiogram (EKG) from the electrical ...
FDA lays out rules for some smartphone health apps (Update)
Sep 23, 2013
Food and Drug Administration officials say they will begin regulating a new wave of applications and gadgets that work with smartphones to take medical readings and help users monitor their health.
Heads up, phones down when walking
Mar 14, 2014
(Medical Xpress)—Cellphone usage while driving is a widely known danger which has led to bans across the globe. Using a cellphone while walking, however, initially seemed to be an innocuous behavior … ...
Recommended for you
Racist attitudes and beliefs affect medical treatment of US minority groups
23 minutes ago
Patients from minority ethnic groups in the US may be facing racist attitudes and beliefs that can unintentionally affect their treatment, a review of healthcare providers has found.
Coca-cola to cut controversial substance from beverages
2 hours ago
(HealthDay)—A controversial ingredient will be removed from many of Coca-Cola's citrus-flavored drinks, the company says.
Uruguay's president signs marijuana legalization rules
2 hours ago
Uruguay's President Jose Mujica on Tuesday signed off on regulations for his country's landmark legalization of its marijuana market.
Exercise could help disabled people, but too few are active, CDC reports
13 hours ago
(HealthDay)—Half of the 21 million Americans who have a disability don't exercise, and that lack of exercise is jeopardizing their health, federal officials reported Tuesday.
Number of US elderly will double by 2050, report says
13 hours ago
(HealthDay)— There will be almost twice as many elderly Americans in 2050 as there are now, posing serious issues for the nation's health care system, according to two U.S. Census Bureau reports released ...
Black male incarceration can compromise research studies
14 hours ago
Federal restrictions on including prisoners in medical research have negatively impacted research involving black men, who are disproportionately imprisoned, according to a study by Yale School of Medicine ...
User comments
© Medical Xpress 2011-2014, Science X network
0 comments:
Post a Comment