Health applications: everything is in self-measurement
For many of us, the smartphone has become as indispensable as our keyring or our credit card. Call, view e-mails, weather, find a good restaurant, take pictures or simply play to relax: impossible to imagine everyday life (even on vacation) without this mobile phone IQ increasingly high. And our dependence on this small technological marvel, which already has more than one billion subscribers worldwide (including 24 million in France), is not about to decline. Because, with the proliferation of body measurement tools that can be connected, our laptop is poised to establish itself as a true "health coach".
Number of steps taken during the day, steps mounted, calories burned, duration of sleep cycles, frequency of heartbeat, breathing rate, toothbrushing time ... All this information can now be recorded by tiny handheld sensors hidden in armbands, watches, toothbrushes or tongs hung on the belt. Automatically transmitted to the smartphone via USB port or Bluetooth or Wi-Fi wireless link, the data is stored in memory, analyzed and presented as graphs or dashboards that can be viewed anywhere and anytime on the small screen of the device. It's simple: aficionados of self-measurement can no longer do without it.
Health applications: the smart fork
We know it: big bites turned in quickly make the bed of overweight and obesity. " This causes an insulin rise too fast that promotes fat storage ," says Dr. Arnaud Cocaul, author of the regimes SAV (eds Marabout). And it also encourages swallowing more food. A fast eater swallows an average of 10% more calories per day than a slow eater. Hence the idea of a French engineer, Jacques Lépine, to create an electronic fork that helps to adopt the slow attitude . Connected via Bluetooth to the smartphone, it detects the speed of absorption of food and alerts us if ingestion too fast. According to his profile, personalized training plans are then proposed. The first Hapiforks should be available in the fall of 2013. Info at www.hapilabs.com/products-hapifork.asp.
Health applications: the big mode of "acute measurement"
On the West Coast, this practice is a real social phenomenon. The "Quantified self", the name given to this habit of constantly quantifying one's daily life, is akin to a lifestyle and personal development approach. The movement has taken such magnitude in the United States that 2013 has been proclaimed "Year of the Quantified Self" ! Driven by the cult of performance and the growing aspiration to well-being, it is spreading today at the speed of big V in France. " It's a great lever to get to know yourself better, to think about your behavior and even to change it, " says Emmanuel Gadenne, who introduced the concept in France and dedicated a book to it ( the Quantified Self Guidebook). Better manage your life, your health, your productivity , FYP ed). " You make a contract with yourself (lose 5 kg, exercise more, sleep more ...) and entrust a software to verify the smooth running. The boldest even publish their personal data on social networks or virtual communities dedicated to Quantified self. Exhibitionism? Not sure. " We get caught up quickly, says Didier, director of a thalassotherapy center, keen on jogging and not leaving his Fitbit One measuring bracelet. Comparing your data with other followers creates a positive emulation that helps achieve or exceed your goals . "
In addition to the sense of pride it generates, this sharing of information is a driving force, as suggested by US researchers at the University of South Carolina. Their study, published in January 2013 in the journal Translational Behavioral Medicine , evaluated the impact of social networks on the success of weight loss programs for overweight people. A hundred volunteers equipped with an iPhone, a Blackberry and other smartphones were recruited. After six months of diet and exercise, everyone who regularly announced the fruits of their efforts on the social network Twitter have significantly improved. For the majority of participants, the number of kilos flew was also closely related to the number of tweets shipped ! Each decade of these small messages sent on the World Wide Web would correspond to an additional loss of about 0.5% of the initial weight. That is 4 kg every 100 tweets for a person of 80 kg. A not insignificant effect in the long run. And a great opportunity to " give more meaning to its use of social networks, " said Emmanuel Gadenne.
Health apps more and more pointed
Originally presented as simple gadgetry, mobile phone self-monitoring devices have evolved so quickly in recent years that they are now claiming the role of medical assistants . The Withings scale, for example, invented by the Frenchman Eric Carreel, becomes very sophisticated. Its first model, marketed in the summer of 2009, allowed only to follow its weight curve and the evolution of its fat content by impedancemetry, a technique that measures the electrical resistance of tissues using a current low intensity that runs through the body. The new version (the Smart Body Analyzer), launched this spring, is now much more than a scale: it also takes the pulse by the feet and analyzes the rate of carbon dioxide floating inside the home. Above 1000 parts per million (ppm), she advises airing the room to keep her lungs . All of this data can be shared via the smartphone and the internet with his doctor or a community of friends.
The same is true of the Withings and iHealth armbands, which make it possible to know one's blood pressure in real time and whose free downloadable applications figured in 2012 in third position of the most sold communicating objects on the other side of the Atlantic, according to the specialized site Proximamobile.fr . The Fujitsu Japanese goes even further by offering a phone capable of estimating the pulse in five seconds chrono ... without any contact! No mystery here: the device measures changes in facial shine caused by fluctuations in hemoglobin levels circulating in the underlying blood vessels.
In addition to their playfulness, these tools can also make public service by providing objective data . But you must not expect too much. Despite their increasing reliability, they will never replace the doctor, if only to interpret the measurements correctly. Bracelets or bands that record the quality of sleep, for example, do not allow to establish a real diagnosis. But according to Professor Damien Léger, head of the Center for Sleep and Vigilance at the Hôtel-Dieu in Paris, " they can give valuable insights into the evolution of chronic insomnia or the effectiveness of treatment. ". Especially since we often tend to overestimate the duration of our nocturnal awakenings, what a sensor, him, will not do. Also be careful not to fall into excess. Being able to constantly take your pulse or rate your breath, as proposed by the iPhone My Asthma application, can create dependency and tip the most anxious towards hypochondria. Better to use them with reason and parsimony unless your doctor encourages you to regularly follow a specific problem.
Health applications: more autonomy for diabetics
Smartphones equipped with a blood glucose meter, such as those of the American Telcare or the Israeli LifeWatch, are a real breakthrough for insulin-dependent diabetics. The device is equipped with an orifice provided for the strips on which the patient deposits a drop of blood. The on-board blood glucose meter then immediately displays the result and indicates the dose of insulin to be injected to make up for the failures of the pancreas. The Sanofi laboratory offers a small external reader that plugs into the iPhone and sends the data to a nurse reference. Its use, which will be evaluated as part of a telemedicine project (Diabeo), should improve monitoring of patients while spacing medical consultations. Malin!
Health applications: a mini-laboratory under the skin
No more regular blood tests to measure your blood sugar, cholesterol, iron or other biological markers? A subcutaneous implant, developed by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, is turning this dream into reality. Although tiny (14 mm long and 2 mm wide), it contains five measurement sensors (adaptable to everyone's needs) and a radio transmitter to transmit the data collected on the doctor's phone or digital tablet. Already successfully tested in animals, this device could be offered in five to seven years to patients with chronic diseases or those at risk of myocardial infarction.
Health applications: the stethoscope relegated to the rank of antiquity
In France, health professionals are still unaccustomed to these new technologies. But they will certainly follow the lead of their American colleagues who already use them a lot in their daily practice and even begin to prescribe medical applications to their patients with chronic diseases. Given the enormous possibilities offered by smartphones and the ingenuity of peripheral manufacturers, the good old stethoscope could soon be relegated to the rank of antiquity. Several devices reserved for the medical profession are indeed marketed across the Atlantic. Thus, the Vscan, designed by the company General Electric, turns the doctor's iPhone into a pocket scanner. A small ultrasound probe connected by cable to the device allows to instantly visualize on the screen the abdominal cavity of the patient. It also has a Doppler function to check the flow of blood flow.
Another system, developed by the California firm AliveCor, metamorphoses this time the phone electrocardiograph. Just put two fingers on the electrodes connected to the hull of the mobile so that the plot of heart contractions is displayed immediately. Useful for the medical office during an emergency or bedside, especially in areas affected by medical desertification. The generalist can indeed use these tools, easily manipulated and transportable, and transmit images continuously to a hospital cardiologist, to collect his opinion and refine his diagnosis.
Already approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the US agency for drugs, these applications should certainly appear soon in Europe. Other professional peripherals will also proliferate: a lens that can be adapted to the smartphone's camera to enlarge the image of a suspicious skin lesion up to twenty times, an eye adapter to examine the back of the eye, a mouthpiece to slide inside the ear to carefully examine the eardrum ... And it's not over. Even more innovative devices are expected.
By exploiting a whole arsenal of wireless devices, these smartphones multifonctions open the way to the possibility of carrying out a complete check-up remotely , even in the heart of the Sahara! A revolution worthy of the most extravagant scenarios. Often reality catches up with fiction.
