Previously submitted to: Journal of Medical Internet Research (no longer under consideration since Dec 24, 2021)
Date Submitted: Sep 6, 2020
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Using Smartphone and Wearable Wrist Sensor as Clinical Tools to Inform the Treatment of Mental Health Needs and ‘Challenging Behaviour’ Affecting People with Intellectual Disabilities: A Structured Review
ABSTRACT
Background:
People with intellectual disabilities (ID) are at high risk of comorbid physical and psychiatric disorders and/or behavioural problems, some of which may go unrecognised and can be difficult to evaluate clinically. We review the potential for smartphone and other mobile technologies to be used in combination as a clinical tool to track changes over time in physiological, behavioural, and mental health measures and the integration of these different data sets to inform clinical and social care practice for people with ID and for other groups with complex needs.
Objective:
The aim is to evaluate the current state of mobile health-tracking systems that could be used by people with ID and would enable non-intrusive data collection over time. We focused on two types of devices that arguably have the greatest usability and mobility: smartphones and wearable wrist sensors.
Methods:
Structured reviews of both academic literatures written in English and non-academic resources (mobile app stores) were conducted. For the literature review, five databases were searched for papers that met three criteria: a) a focus on smartphones and/or wearable wrist sensors, b) devices that are aimed primarily at assessing, tracking, or monitoring users’ health conditions over time, and c) devices that are specifically applicable for populations with complex needs, such as people with ID. Additionally, two mobile app marketplaces (Android Apps on Google Play, iOS 12) were searched over two web reviews to identify the apps that matched these needs.
Results:
From a total of 276 publications, 20 articles were identified. However, very few of these reported on studies involving devices facilitating the comprehensive collection and integration of clinical data. From the two online reviews 1,115 mobile apps were examined; further coding identified 19 apps that met our criteria.
Conclusions:
While there are a considerable number of health-tracking apps available for the typically developing population, systems that can support the clinical assessment of people with ID are limited.
Citation
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Copyright
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