self-monitoring

Testing urine can reveal many things, such as diseases, pregnancy, drug usage, dehydration and diet problems. Now, a new iPhone app will soon allow you to analyze your own urine. Read on to see how easy it can be to run a urinalysis in your own home.[read more]

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Finding your way through the maze of health-related apps can be a challenge. The myriad selection can baffle a techie, let alone a Boomer or senior or trying to find an app to monitor their health. There has been no screening process for these apps—until now.[read more]

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“Eating late may influence the success of weight-loss therapy. Novel therapeutic strategies should incorporate not only the caloric intake and macronutrient distribution-as is classically done-but also the timing of food.”[read more]

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However, today, as we walk around with smartphones, equipped with cameras, internet access and modest processing power, we may be carrying the future of diagnosis in our pockets. Technology in the form of apps for diagnosis, apart from being free and discreet to use, could be applied regularly by individuals whenever they felt the need[read more]

If you’ve ever dieted, you know how frustrating it can be to discover you haven’t lost any weight after a week of counting calories. Sure, you can always blame a poorly calibrated scale. But the lack of weight loss could be a matter of metabolism – we need to increase our metabolism rate so we can burn more of those calories.[read more]

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Almost no one really uses smartphone apps to track their health. That’s my takeaway from the latest Pew Research report. Although the report says close to 70% of adults are tracking some health statistics such as weight, diet or medical symptoms most of them do so either in their head (49%) or on paper (34%).[read more]

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Mobile technology is a powerful tool. Last year alone over 500 companies made healthcare related applications and there are now almost 15,000 applications for health indicator tracking on the market. By tracking health indicators such as blood pressure, heart rate, daily weights and blood sugars (among others) patients can see the impact of interventions such as diet, exercise and drug therapy. Seeing results in real time can be very motivating.[read more]

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Seeing the fast-growing market for personal connected health devices displayed at the recent Consumer Electronics Show, I couldn’t help but reflect on how far consumer connected health has come. Not too many years ago we spent a lot of energy sorting out how we would get home-derived vitals signs out of a device, out of the home, and into our database.[read more]

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I spent the bulk of the last week in Las Vegas attending the Consumer Electronics Show. If there were other academically-oriented physicians attending, I didn’t find them. Of course in the sea of 160,000 people, it’d be hard to pick out people you recognize, let alone find others with similar jobs/interests. It is easy to get distracted by the truly breathtaking displays of ultra-high-def TVs and audio equipment.[read more]

I am very much intrigued with the QS movement and self-monitoring for fitness and behavior modification. I visited several exhibitors at the recent mHealthSummit meeting in Washington DC earlier this month and was interested in some of the products they had for self-tracking. I actually ordered a BodyMedia Fit and gave it to a friend to try out first as I thought it would be more interesting to get another person's opinion.[read more]

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After working at this remote patient monitoring game for about 10 years now, we are ready to bring self-care to consumers – couch potatoes, weekend warriors and all of us in between hoping to live a little healthier, lose a few pounds or just feel a little better. Meet Wellocracy™! The goal of Wellocracy is at once simple and daunting – to get America moving, and to motivate our citizens to move to a healthier state.[read more]

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We found that 60% of American adults track their weight, diet, or exercise routine. One-third of American adults track health indicators or symptoms, like blood pressure, blood sugar, headaches, or sleep patterns. One-third of caregivers – people caring for a loved one, usually an adult family member – say they track a health indicator for their loved one.[read more]