March 9 , 2010 - Kay Connelly

Title: A mobile health application for a chronically ill, low-literacy population

Abstract:

In this presentation, we describe the design of the Dietary Intake Monitoring Application (DIMA [1]), a mobile, electronic food diary for low-literacy patients with stage 5 Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD).  CKD patients do not have functioning kidneys, requiring them to undergo hemodialysis three times a week.  Because excess fluids and toxins normally removed continuously by the kidneys are only removed every other day with dialysis, CKD patients have an extremely restricted prescribed diet.  For example, a typical patient must limit their fluid to 1 liter a day, and their nutrients to 2 g of sodium.  Failure to adhere to the diet can lead to a host of complications, including exacerbated hypertension, pulmonary edema, and even death. However, this population often lacks the computational and memory skills necessary to track their fluid and nutrient intake on their own, with as many as 80% of patients not restricting their fluid and 67% not limiting their nutrients.  Further, this patient group is particularly difficult to design for as they have varying literacy skills, prohibiting text-based input and output.  In this presentation, we describe our approach to designing for a chronically ill patient population that is not tech-savy and has educational barriers for using technology.

[1] Funded by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NBIB): Award #1 R21 EB007083-01A1, titled Self-Monitoring of Dietary and Fluid Intake Using a PDA.