How Mobile Devices Improve Patient Experience, Quality of Life

In a wearable-technology intervention study, young adults with cancer improved their health-related quality of life and physical activity. Adolescent and young adult oncology patients wrestle with significant mental and social issues in addition to the challenges of their medical condition. Fatigue, reduced physical activity and social isolation are all common. But one study suggests technology can improve their health-related quality of life.

Most patients (85 percent) who were equipped with Fitbits and Apple iPads loaded with a meditation app and a suite of games designed for young cancer patients reported that they used the devices to track multiple aspects of their health and 79 percent reported a subjective increase in physical activity. In addition to a user experience questionnaire designed for the study, researchers used the RAND-36 standardized short-form health survey, assessing eight dimensions of health-related quality of life upon entering the study and again six months later, or at the end of treatment, whichever occurred first.

After the intervention, participants demonstrated significant improvements across all eight dimensions, according to Dr. Ilana R. Yurkiewicz of Stanford University School of Medicine and her colleagues, who published their findings based on responses from 33 patients at Stanford University Medical Center in the Journal of Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology.