Life Long and Prosper: Potentials of Low-Cost Consumer Devices for the Prevention of Cardio-Vascular Diseases
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Abstract
Background:
Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are one of the major causes of death worldwide. Personal behavior such as physical activity and vital parameters such as weight considerably influence the risk of incurring a CVD. In the last years numerous products such as pedometers or body fat scales have become available on the mass market that allow monitoring relevant behaviors and vital parameters. These devices are sufficiently precise, affordable, and they are more and more connected to cloud based internet services. While today they are mostly lifestyle oriented they also have considerable potential for health and prevention.
Objectives:
Systems to assist in the prevention of CVD in real-life setting over a long period of time face challenges that are not addressed by today's systems for health behavior change: Such system including all their sensors must be easy and unobtrusive to use to ensure user acceptance. At the same time the collected data must be medically meaningful and reliable for the intended purpose. Technical advances will lead to new and betters sensors that the user will want to use.
Methods:
We make use of existing low-cost consumer devices to monitor a user's behavior. These devices are integrated using their cloud-based data repositories. This approach gives the user the choice of which devices to use. By mapping the devices' features with the prevention goals we ensure that the system collects meaningful data that can be used to monitor the individual's behavior. We conducted a user study with 10 healthy adults to measure usability and identify problems with sensor use in real life. In a first phase the participants used the devices' original portal to monitor their behavior. The subjects (age range 35-75) used an off-the-shelf pedometer and a sports watch for 4 weeks.
Results:
The participants were in principle positive about the use of the devices. Analyzing the sensor data, we found that the users had some difficulties in operating the devices. We also found that the participants' self-assessment about their health behavior was too optimistic compared to the monitored data. They rated the usability of the overall system with 71 of up to 100 points in the "System Usability Scale".
Conclusions:
Our study indicates that today's devices are suitable for a long term monitoring of health for the prevention of CVD, but that usability and acceptance of the software systems are still major topics.
Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are one of the major causes of death worldwide. Personal behavior such as physical activity and vital parameters such as weight considerably influence the risk of incurring a CVD. In the last years numerous products such as pedometers or body fat scales have become available on the mass market that allow monitoring relevant behaviors and vital parameters. These devices are sufficiently precise, affordable, and they are more and more connected to cloud based internet services. While today they are mostly lifestyle oriented they also have considerable potential for health and prevention.
Objectives:
Systems to assist in the prevention of CVD in real-life setting over a long period of time face challenges that are not addressed by today's systems for health behavior change: Such system including all their sensors must be easy and unobtrusive to use to ensure user acceptance. At the same time the collected data must be medically meaningful and reliable for the intended purpose. Technical advances will lead to new and betters sensors that the user will want to use.
Methods:
We make use of existing low-cost consumer devices to monitor a user's behavior. These devices are integrated using their cloud-based data repositories. This approach gives the user the choice of which devices to use. By mapping the devices' features with the prevention goals we ensure that the system collects meaningful data that can be used to monitor the individual's behavior. We conducted a user study with 10 healthy adults to measure usability and identify problems with sensor use in real life. In a first phase the participants used the devices' original portal to monitor their behavior. The subjects (age range 35-75) used an off-the-shelf pedometer and a sports watch for 4 weeks.
Results:
The participants were in principle positive about the use of the devices. Analyzing the sensor data, we found that the users had some difficulties in operating the devices. We also found that the participants' self-assessment about their health behavior was too optimistic compared to the monitored data. They rated the usability of the overall system with 71 of up to 100 points in the "System Usability Scale".
Conclusions:
Our study indicates that today's devices are suitable for a long term monitoring of health for the prevention of CVD, but that usability and acceptance of the software systems are still major topics.
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