Utilising Smartphones to Aid in the Treatment and Management of Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Future Technologies Conference.

San Francisco - 07 December 2016

Why Should we Care About Chronic Disease? Long term chronic disease is one of the biggest challenges health systems, globally, will face during the twenty-first century. Chronic illnesses are burden for both the individual and society as a whole. The number of people affected by chronic conditions will increase exponentially over the coming decades.

Mobile Health (m-Health) is a growing field, with smartphones being widely adopted across the health care arena. We identify an appetite among IBD patients for a smartphone solution which aids in the self-management of the disease and assists in communicating their needs to their respective clinical teams. Several examples of how smartphones have been utilised to aid in the treatment and management of chronic diseases, such as diabetes and some mental health conditions, which share similar challenges to that of IBD were explored, giving precedent as to how the technology could be utilised in the context of IBD. In this talk we explore the research looking at how mobile health (m-health) can be used to address some of the challenges faced by those dealing with chronic diseases.

Publication: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7821680