How Can Research Keep Up With eHealth? Ten Strategies for Increasing the Timeliness and Usefulness of eHealth Research

Background: eHealth interventions appear and change so quickly that they challenge the way we conduct research. By the time a randomized trial of a new intervention is published, technological improvements and clinical discoveries may make the intervention dated and unappealing. This and the spate of health-related apps and websites may lead consumers, patients, and caregivers to use interventions that lack evidence of efficacy.

Objective: This paper aims to offer strategies for increasing the speed and usefulness of eHealth research.

Methods: The paper describes two types of strategies based on the authors’ own research and the research literature: those that improve the efficiency of eHealth research, and those that improve its quality.

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Article originally published on The Journal of Medical Internet Research

Therapists' apps aim to help with mental health issues

Games like Flappy Bird and Candy Crush have helped many of us de-stress during long waits at the doctor's office and crowded Metro rides. But what if an app could actually help with mental health?

Researchers from Hunter College and the City University of New York say they've developed an app that can reduce anxiety.

In the game, called PersonalZen, players encounter two animated characters in a field of grass. One of them looks calm and friendly, while the other looks angry. Soothing music plays in the background. When one creature burrows into the grass, players must follow the rustling leaves and trace its path.

It's not quite as exciting Flappy Bird, but the researchers found that it helped anxious people. We tried it out, and found that focusing on keeping track of those sprites was more challenging than we initially expected.

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Article originally posted by NPR.

In Search of a Few Good Apps

mHealth apps are mobile device applications intended to improve health outcomes, deliver health care services, or enable health research.1 The number of apps has increased substantially, and more than 40 000 health, fitness, and medical apps currently are available on the market.2 Because apps can be used to inexpensively promote wellness and manage chronic diseases, their appeal has increased with health reform and the increasing focus on value. The bewildering diversity of apps available has made it difficult for clinicians and the public to discern which apps are the safest or most effective.

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Article originally posted on JAMA

Hear Your Unborn Baby's Heartbeat? There's an App for That

Bellabeat, the company behind the iPhone-enabled fetal heart-rate monitor, updated its iOS app on Thursday.

The latest version includes a new feature to help expectant mothers track changes in their mental health, in addition to the tools for keeping tabs on their own physical health and their baby's development. 

Bellabeat's Connected System allows pregnant women to listen to their children's heartbeats through a device that connects to a smartphone with an audio cable. It uses sound waves to find the baby's heartbeat while the accompanying Bellabeat app records the audio.

The app tracks heartbeats per minute and gives users tools to track other important stats, like the number of times a baby kicks or how its weight changes over time.

Link to the full article: http://mashable.com/2014/03/20/bellabeat-mood-tracking/

Article originally posted on Mashable.

Crowdsourcing medical decisions: Ethicists worry Josh Hardy case may set bad precedent

Just hours after social-media supporters of a dying 7-year-old boy pressured a reluctant biotech company into giving him an experimental medication, the backlash began. Is “it rite to save 1 child an[d] not the rest?” wondered one commenter on a news forum. “It’s really not fair to the thousands of others that were turned down just because they didn’t make a big public outcry,” said another.

The Herald-Sun newspaper in Durham, N.C., where the company that makes the drug is based, said it was glad for the boy’s sake that he was able to get the medicine. “But the process leaves us pained,” the editorial board wrote. “This is no way to make health-care decisions.”

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Article originally published by The Washington Post

The Next Big Health App Needs to Do More Than Just Track Our Numbers

Think about your heartbeat for a minute. In fact, hold your breath right now while you do. You should be able to feel it as it changes speed. Maybe you know your resting heart rate, or your maximum heart rate, but do you know how much it varies, or at what rate? Heart rate variability measures the amount of time between beats, and how much that changes. That’s actually the more meaningful number than your pulse. It’s something a good heart rate monitor will use to tell you how hard you should workout on a given day. That is, it takes information and makes it actionable, delivering meaning, rather than just a number. Too often, we track the beats per minute, when it’s the time between those beats that really matters.

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Originally published in Wired

Mental Health Agencies Use Social Media to Help Youth

Three Thunder Bay mental health agencies have launched a new program to help youth express themselves and find support. St. Joseph's Care Group, the Children's Centre and Thunder Bay Counselling Centre are turning to social media in an effort to reach out to young people. The agencies have launched the #sharehowUfeel campaign, through which teens can express themselves on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

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Originally published at CBC.ca