Objective measurement of frequency and pattern of nocturnal cough in children with asthma exacerbation

A new method for objectively evaluating nocturnal cough in adults

BACKGROUND

For the management of cough diseases in adults, an objective method of evaluating nocturnal cough is required.

METHODS

In Study 1, a cough monitoring system was evaluated using 25 adult volunteers. In Study 2, the cough monitoring system was validated using 20 samples from 10 adult patients with cough diseases obtained overnight. In hospitalized patients, our original cough monitoring system with a microphone and accelerometer was used. At the same time, coughs were recorded using a video camera with digital sound recording. The number of coughs in each 8-h video-audio recording was counted manually by three trained observers. All cough data were printed out, and the basal number of cough events, using both the printed-out data and video-audio recordings, were then calculated by three observers.

RESULTS

In Study 1, the cough monitoring system demonstrated good agreement with the number of coughs counted by examiners (sensitivity 99.2%, specificity 98.9%). In Study 2, there was significant agreement in the counts of natural coughs between our system and the video-audio method (p < 0.0001) and between our system and the basal cough events (p < 0.0001).

CONCLUSIONS

Our method demonstrated excellent agreement with the video-audio recording method in adults and is considered extremely useful for the objective monitoring of overnight cough in adult patients with cough diseases.

Conversational Agents as Mediating Social Actors in Chronic Disease Management Involving Health Care Professionals, Patients, and Family Members: Multisite Single-Arm Feasibility Study

BACKGROUND

Successful management of chronic diseases requires a trustful collaboration between health care professionals, patients, and family members. Scalable conversational agents, designed to assist health care professionals, may play a significant role in supporting this collaboration in a scalable way by reaching out to the everyday lives of patients and their family members. However, to date, it remains unclear whether conversational agents, in such a role, would be accepted and whether they can support this multistakeholder collaboration.

OBJECTIVE

With asthma in children representing a relevant target of chronic disease management, this study had the following objectives: (1) to describe the design of MAX, a conversational agent-delivered asthma intervention that supports health care professionals targeting child-parent teams in their everyday lives; and (2) to assess the (a) reach of MAX, (b) conversational agent-patient working alliance, (c) acceptance of MAX, (d) intervention completion rate, (e) cognitive and behavioral outcomes, and (f) human effort and responsiveness of health care professionals in primary and secondary care settings.

METHODS

MAX was designed to increase cognitive skills (ie, knowledge about asthma) and behavioral skills (ie, inhalation technique) in 10-15-year-olds with asthma, and enables support by a health professional and a family member. To this end, three design goals guided the development: (1) to build a conversational agent-patient working alliance; (2) to offer hybrid (human- and conversational agent-supported) ubiquitous coaching; and (3) to provide an intervention with high experiential value. An interdisciplinary team of computer scientists, asthma experts, and young patients with their parents developed the intervention collaboratively. The conversational agent communicates with health care professionals via email, with patients via a mobile chat app, and with a family member via SMS text messaging. A single-arm feasibility study in primary and secondary care settings was performed to assess MAX.

RESULTS

Results indicated an overall positive evaluation of MAX with respect to its reach (49.5%, 49/99 of recruited and eligible patient-family member teams participated), a strong patient-conversational agent working alliance, and high acceptance by all relevant stakeholders. Moreover, MAX led to improved cognitive and behavioral skills and an intervention completion rate of 75.5%. Family members supported the patients in 269 out of 275 (97.8%) coaching sessions. Most of the conversational turns (99.5%) were conducted between patients and the conversational agent as opposed to between patients and health care professionals, thus indicating the scalability of MAX. In addition, it took health care professionals less than 4 minutes to assess the inhalation technique and 3 days to deliver related feedback to the patients. Several suggestions for improvement were made.

CONCLUSIONS

This study provides the first evidence that conversational agents, designed as mediating social actors involving health care professionals, patients, and family members, are not only accepted in such a "team player" role but also show potential to improve health-relevant outcomes in chronic disease management.

Characteristics of Asthma-related Nocturnal Cough: A Potential New Digital Biomarker

Introduction

The nature of nocturnal cough is largely unknown. It might be a valid marker for asthma control but very few studies characterized it as a basis for better defining its role and its use as clinical marker. This study investigated prevalence and characteristics of nocturnal cough in asthmatics over the course of four weeks.

Methods

In two centers, 94 adult patients with physician-diagnosed asthma were recruited. Patient-reported outcomes and nocturnal sensor data were collected by a smartphone with a chat-based study app.

Results

Patients coughed in 53% of 2212 nights (range: 0–345 coughs/night). Median coughs per hour were 0 (IQR 0–1). Nocturnal cough rates showed considerable inter-individual variance. The highest counts were measured in the first 30 min in bed (4.5-fold higher than rest of night). Eighty-six percent of coughs were part of a cough cluster. Clusters consisted of a median of two coughs (IQR 2–4). Nocturnal cough was persistent within patient.

Conclusion

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to describe prevalence and characteristics of nocturnal cough in asthma over a period of one month, demonstrating that it was a prevalent symptom with large variance between patients and high persistence within patients. Cough events in asthmatics were 4.5 times more frequent within the first 30 min in bed indicating a potential role of positional change, and not more frequent during the early morning hours. An important next step will investigate the association between nocturnal cough and asthma control.

Objective measurement of nocturnal cough in infants with acute bronchiolitis

OBJECTIVES

The objective measurement of the cough severity and the assessment of the pattern of nocturnal coughing could be useful in the treatment of respiratory diseases in children.

STUDY DESIGN

In children with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)-induced acute bronchiolitis, coughs were recorded using our original system with a microphone and accelerometer, and analyzed using our customized software program. The number of coughs in every 30-minute interval was measured in patients with acute bronchiolitis (n = 20), and their results were compared with those of infants with asthma exacerbation (n = 16).

RESULTS

The cough count in children with acute bronchiolitis (median: 108.0/night) was almost as high as that in children with asthma exacerbation (median: 119/night). However, the time-dependent pattern of overnight cough was different in infants with acute bronchiolitis and those with asthma exacerbation. In the infants with asthma exacerbation, cough frequency significantly increased while falling asleep and waking up as compared to midnight (p < 0.001 and p < 0.001, respectively). However, these differences were not found in infants with acute bronchiolitis.

CONCLUSIONS

Our data demonstrated that the number of coughing events due to acute bronchiolitis was similar to that of acute asthma exacerbation, although the acute bronchiolitis did not show a characteristic overnight cough pattern.

Passive Nocturnal Physiologic Monitoring Enables Early Detection of Exacerbations in Children with Asthma. A Proof-of-Concept Study

RATIONALE

Asthma management depends on prompt identification of symptoms, which challenges both patients and providers. In asthma, a misapprehension of health between exacerbations can compromise compliance. Thus, there is a need for a tool that permits objective longitudinal monitoring without increasing the burden of patient compliance.

OBJECTIVES

We sought to determine whether changes in nocturnal physiology are associated with asthma symptoms in pediatric patients.

METHODS

Using a contactless bed sensor, nocturnal heart rate (HR), respiratory rate, relative stroke volume, and movement in children with asthma 5-18 years of age (n = 16) were recorded. Asthma symptoms and asthma control test (ACT) score were reported every 2 weeks. Random forest model was used to identify physiologic parameters associated with asthma symptoms. Elastic net regression was used to identify variables associated with ACT score.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS

The model on the full cohort performed with sensitivity of 47.2%, specificity of 96.3%, and accuracy of 87.4%; HR and respiratory parameters were the most important variables in this model. The model predicted asthma symptoms 35% of the time on the day before perception of symptoms, and 100% of the time for a select subject for which the model performed with greater sensitivity. Multivariable and bivariable analyses demonstrated significant association between HR and respiratory rate parameters and ACT score.

CONCLUSIONS

Nocturnal physiologic changes correlate with asthma symptoms, supporting the notion that nocturnal physiologic monitoring represents an objective diagnostic tool capable of longitudinally assessing disease control and predicting asthma exacerbations in children with asthma at home.

Acid-Suppressive Drug Use During Pregnancy and the Risk of Childhood Asthma: A Meta-analysis

CONTEXT

The association between acid-suppressive drug exposure during pregnancy and childhood asthma has not been well established.

OBJECTIVE

To conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis on this association to provide further justification for the current studies.

DATA SOURCES

We searched PubMed, Medline, Embase, the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, EBSCO Information Services, Web of Science, and Google Scholar from inception until June 2017.

STUDY SELECTION

Observational studies in which researchers assessed acid-suppressive drug use during pregnancy and the risk of childhood asthma were included.

DATA EXTRACTION

Of 556 screened articles, 8 population-based studies were included in the final analyses.

RESULTS

When all the studies were pooled, acid-suppressive drug use in pregnancy was associated with an increased risk of asthma in childhood (relative risk [RR] = 1.45; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.35-1.56; I² = 0%; P < .00001). The overall risk of asthma in childhood increased among proton pump inhibitor users (RR = 1.34; 95% CI 1.18-1.52; I² = 46%; P < .00001) and histamine-2 receptor antagonist users (RR = 1.57; 95% CI 1.46-1.69; I² = 0%; P < .00001).

LIMITATIONS

None of the researchers in the studies in this meta-analysis adjusted for the full panel of known confounders in these associations.

CONCLUSIONS

The evidence suggests that prenatal, maternal, acid-suppressive drug use is associated with an increased risk of childhood asthma. This information may help clinicians and parents to use caution when deciding whether to take acid-suppressing drugs during pregnancy because of the risk of asthma in offspring.

An objective evaluation of nocturnal cough count and cough pattern in children with psychogenic cough

Two patients with a chronic, barking cough were diagnosed with psychogenic cough. Using an original cough counter we studied the nocturnal cough count and pattern. While the number of coughs when awake was extremely high for both patients, the number of coughs was remarkably reduced during sleep, similar to an exacerbation of asthma. Moreover, the properties of the coughs when awake were clearly different from those of coughs during sleep. In conclusion, an objective examination using a cough counter was useful for the diagnosis, treatment and management of psychogenic cough.