Informing Personalised Gamification Interventions Through a Novel Gamified Quiz

Nonadherence to medical interventions and other advice leads to increased care costs and poorer health outcomes across a range of medical fields. An approach to increasing adherence is gamification. To maximize the benefits of gamification, a more structured and informed implementation is required. In this paper, a novel web-based personality determiner has been outlined, the integration of which could provide the personalisation required for an optimized gamification implementation.

M♡THer, an mHealth System to Support Women with Gestational Diabetes Mellitus: Feasibility and Acceptability Study

Background: Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is defined as glucose intolerance first identified during pregnancy. Delays in diagnosis and challenges in management can lead to serious adverse outcomes for the mother and child. As rates of GDM diagnosis increase worldwide, health systems and maternity services have become increasingly strained, especially with new restrictions around in-person care due to the current COVID-19 pandemic. Mobile health (mHealth) has increasingly shown promise for management of chronic disease, driven by smartphone adoption and increased internet connectivity. The aim of this work was to evaluate the adoption and multidisciplinary care coordination of an mHealth platform called M♡THer in a cohort of women with first-time diagnosis of GDM. Methods: The mHealth platform for GDM management was developed incorporating a smartphone application, clinician portal, and secure cloud data storage. Forty participants with a first-time diagnosis of GDM were recruited to use the app during their pregnancy. User attitudes from clinicians and women were captured through post-hoc surveys, and app-usage metrics. Results: Clinicians and women indicated satisfaction and ease of use of the mHealth platform, with some technological challenges around wireless connectivity. Blood glucose reviews and antenatal contact were higher with use of the M♡THer app compared with a matched historical sample. Conclusion: The M♡THer mHealth platform is a new comprehensive tool for health care of women with GDM, and may provide an effective new avenue to enhance multidisciplinary care in the face of COVID-19 disruptions and challenges to traditional care pathways.

Health-e Minds: a Participatory Personalised and Gamified mHealth Platform to Support Healthy Living Behaviours for People with Mental Illness

This paper presents the development of an innovative platform (Health-e Minds) to support persons with diagnosed serious mental illness (SMI) in their self-management, but also to enhance multidisciplinary care provision. It comprises of a smartphone app and an interactive internet-based clinician web portal. The smartphone app accompanies and guides persons with SMI through their recovery journey by monitoring health measures, delivering simple interactive questionnaires and providing educational and motivational multimedia content. The web-portal enables clinical care providers to view their client's progress and provide individualized feedback and/or early care intervention dependent on the advice of the clinical review. A unique feature of the platform is an inbuilt gaming component which encourages patients to adhere to the goals set in consultation with their clinicians. Rewards are attained by comparison of activities achieved, measured against individualized goals, set through the clinical portal. A feasibility study is underway among 40 patients with SMI at the Sunshine Coast University Hospital, in order to ascertain levels of program efficacy and successful health-related outcomes.

Increasing Health Care Adherence Through Gamification, Video Feedback, and Real-World Rewards

Treatment non-adherence poses a sizeable and persistent challenge to health professionals. In the US alone, it is estimated that at least $100 billion per year is spent on avoidable health care costs with an additional $230 billion per year forfeited due to lost productivity. Efforts to increase adherence have yielded mixed results. We present an adaptable, theoretical framework that uses established gamification methods coupled with a means of motivating patients using real-world rewards. The framework presented herein is implemented via user interface modifications to a clinically validated health tracking app, as well as a means of delivering video feedback for viewing a variety of potential reward outcomes.

Liquid cooling system for the vibro-tactile threshold device

Vibrotactile threshold testing has been used to investigate activation of human somatosensory pathways. A portable vibrotactile threshold testing device called the Vibrotactile Threshold Evaluator for the Workplace (VTEW) was designed for screening of carpal tunnel syndrome in the workplace, and initially contained a small fan for cooling. During subject testing, the device is operated intermittently, which causes the linear actuator to warm the tactile probe. The probe causes discomfort for some subjects. During testing, the probe heated to 42 °C within 90 seconds of continuous operation. A liquid cooling system was implemented to dissipate heat from the probe. The liquid cooling system maintains a steady state temperature of 36 °C for continuous actuation of the probe. The liquid cooling system is capable of maintaining a safe operating temperature, without adding erroneous vibrations to the device. However, the cooling system deters the portability of the device. Further research will investigate how to make the liquid cooling system portable and implements vibrotactile threshold testing in the workplace to quickly evaluate whether or not a person has early symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome.

Cigarette smoking, manifest anxiety and somatic symptoms

Fifty smokers and fifty non-smokers were administered the MMPI's Manifest Anxiety Scale (MAS). Mean MAS scores for smokers were significantly higher than those of non-smokers. Item analysis revealed that smokers obtained higher scores than non-smokers on significantly more items in which anxiety is manifested by a physical symptom rather than a psychological symptom. It is possible that physical stimulation by nicotine may contribute to a more ready arousal to anxiety in smokers.