HEALTH BEAT: EMPOWERING CONSUMERS

New technologies can benefit health

Modern devices are helping us change unhealthy habits

By Kimberlee Roth
Special to the Tribune
Published May 30, 2006

Most of us have probably heard the concerns about the dangers of interactive technology on our health: Web surfing, e-mail and video games keep us tied to computer monitors for hours at a time, lowering activity levels and straining eyes; talking on cell phones distracts us from tasks at hand.

No doubt there are downsides, but a high-tech approach to health also can confer benefits such as helping us change unhealthy behaviors and improving how we feel.

"Given the complex health problems that need to be treated today, incorporating technology into health-care delivery means we can treat people more effectively, efficiently and cost-effectively," said Nilmini Wickramasinghe, associate director of the Center for the Management of Medical Technology at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

According to a paper published recently by the American Medical Association, 63 percent of the U.S. adult population had gone online in 2003; of those, almost 64 percent looked for health-related information. Forty-eight percent reported going online before seeing a doctor.

Beyond that, here are some of the other innovative applications:

Among teens, instant messaging and text messaging are edging out e-mail as the "killer app for communicating with friends," Pew Internet and American Life Project research shows. So researchers in Australia put text-messaging technology to use with teens for another purpose: to help them quit smoking.

In a paper titled "Do u smoke after txt?" investigators reported that 28 percent of teens in the study who received regular, personalized text messages with smoking-cessation advice and support had quit after six weeks versus 13 percent of those who didn't receive the messages.

In an ongoing study by the Rush University Medical Center and Stroger Hospital, 32 low-income urban teens with asthma were given MP3 players loaded with music and videos interspersed with messages from the likes of rapper Ludacris, reminding the teens to take their asthma medication.

Personal digital assistants have been recruited for healthy causes too. Patients in clinical trials and other studies are being given the handheld devices to record their daily symptoms, diet and other data instead of using paper and pen. In a study published in the British Medical Journal, researchers found that compliance was more than 90 percent among patients keeping tabs electronically versus 11 percent among those using paper.

In a study at the University of Alberta in Canada, patients who received e-mail reminders about physical activity and nutrition were more active and had more positive perceptions of exercise than patients who didn't receive the e-mails. They even maintained their physical-activity levels during an Alberta winter, a notable finding, the researchers wrote.

The Chicago Department of Public Health helps support inspot.org, a Web site where you can anonymously send e-cards to partners to whom you may have passed a sexually transmitted disease. (Surprise: You have more than mail.)

Finnish researchers have developed a prototype application for consumers to use camera phones as bar-code readers. Hungry shoppers can scan grocery store items with the phones and receive product-specific nutritional information. Test runs have targeted dieters and the lactose intolerant, but the technology could be a welcome shopping companion to anyone with diabetes, allergies or other food restrictions.

Plenty of companies and university researchers are targeting seniors for new technologies and applications too. Devices remind users, among other things, to take their pills, warn of medication mistakes and detect when someone with Alzheimer's may be wandering.

But do interactive consumer health technologies really make a difference? "Certainly these types of interactions help patients take more ownership of their health care and treatment," Wickramasinghe said. "They're empowered. Take a child with asthma or someone with diabetes -- by careful monitoring, they can have a more normal life."

 

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