Adherence to a Multidisciplinary Lifestyle Program for Patients With Atrial Fibrillation and Obesity: Feasibility Study

Background: Atrial fibrillation is commonly associated with obesity. Observational studies have shown that weight loss is associated with improved prognosis and a decrease in atrial fibrillation frequency and severity. However, despite these benefits, nonadherence to lifestyle programs is common. Objective: In this study, we evaluated adherence...

Psychosocial barriers and facilitators for adherence to a healthy lifestyle among patients with chronic kidney disease: a focus group study

Background: Progression of chronic kidney disease (CKD) may be delayed if patients engage in healthy lifestyle behaviors. However, lifestyle adherence is very difficult and may be influenced by problems in psychosocial functioning. This qualitative study was performed to gain insights into psychosocial barriers and facilitators for lifestyle...

Detecting and treating psychosocial and lifestyle-related difficulties in chronic disease: Development and treatment protocol of the e-goal ehealth care pathway

Many patients with lifestyle-related chronic diseases find it difficult to adhere to a healthy and active lifestyle, often due to psychosocial difficulties. The aim of the current study was to develop an eHealth care pathway aimed at detecting and treating psychosocial and lifestyle-related difficulties that fits the needs and preferences of...

A comparison between chemical cleaning efficiency in lab-scale and full-scale reverse osmosis membranes: Role of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS)

Chemical cleaning is vital for the optimal operation of membrane systems. Membrane chemical cleaning protocols are often developed in the laboratory flow cells (e.g., Membrane Fouling Simulator (MFS)) using synthetic feed water (nutrient excess) and short experimental time of typically days. However, full-scale Reverse Osmosis (RO) membranes...

Turbuscope: Designing an eHealth solution to improve medication adherence for asthma patients with low health literacy

This project presents the design process of an innovative eHealth solution targeted to improve medication adherence for asthma patients with low health literacy. The symptoms of asthma, such as shortness of breath, can lead to a severe reduction in the quality of life. To reduce the severity of these symptoms, it is important that a patient is...

Guided or factual computer support for kidney patients with different experience levels and medical health situations: Preferences and usage

Personalization of eHealth systems is a promising technique for improving patients’ adherence. This paper explores the possibility of personalisation based on the patients’ medical health situation and on their health literacy. The study is set within the context of a self-management support system (SMSS) for renal transplant patients. A SMSS...

How health care professionals evaluate a digital intervention to improve medication adherence: Qualitative exploratory study

Background: Medication nonadherence poses a serious and a hard-to-tackle problem for many chronic diseases. Electronic health (eHealth) apps that foster patient engagement and shared decision making (SDM) may be a novel approach to improve medication adherence.<br/><br/>Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the perspective of...

On the mimicking of geckos and tree frogs for adhering to soft substrates

<b>Background</b>: Soft-tissue grip is a challenge in minimally invasive surgery. Grasping instruments used in clinical practice require high pinch forces in order to generate sufficient grip for manipulating soft tissue without slipping.<br/>In nature, several animals employ adhesion in order to grip on, not only hard, but also soft substrates....

How should a virtual agent present psychoeducation?: Influence of verbal and textual presentation on adherence

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE:<br/>With the rise of autonomous e-mental health applications, virtual agents can play a major role in improving trustworthiness, therapy outcome and adherence. In these applications, it is important that patients adhere in the sense that they perform the tasks, but also that they adhere to the specific recommendations...

Self-management support system for renal transplant patients: Understanding adherence and acceptance

Computer-based support for disease self-management has been proposed for chronic patients to stimulate early awareness of disease changes, facilitate patients’ autonomy, and reduce demands on health care resources. Renal transplant patients need lifelong care and can be viewed as chronically ill: they visit hospital regularly to monitor their...

Reminders make people adhere better to a self-help sleep intervention

The experiment presented in this paper investigated the effects of different kinds of reminders on adherence to automated parts of a cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) delivered via a mobile device. Previous studies report that computerized health interventions can be effective. However, treatment adherence is still an issue....

Fysio Compass: Increasing active patient engagement in telephysiotherapy

This thesis investigates the challenge of increasing patient exercise adherence in a self-managed telephysiotherapy setting concerning opportunities of persuasive design interventions. It shows how active patient engagement can be increased by combining offline and online solutions that mutually support each other in guiding the patient and...

Emma - Improving the patient's therapy adherence by using a smart wristband device

This thesis describes the design process and end results of my graduation internship at Medicine Men, a startup which develops medical applications for wearable devices. My design goal was to design the ?mma watchapp interface in such a way that it improves the therapy adherence of chronic patients. This project will focus on the unintentional...

Increasing adherence of medication by supporting self-management

Yearly 5.6% of all hospitalization in the Netherlands are caused by improper use of medication. 46% of these hospitalizations (19,000) could be avoided, which could save 85 million euro each year. One of the forms of improper use is medication non-adherence, which means taking the medication not as prescribed (prescribed dosage and moment of the...

The Totem Pole - A therapy intervention for the youngsters of Mistral

In this Master thesis the design process of the Totem Pole is presented. The assignment of this graduation project is to design a product as a therapy intervention that could be used in one of the addiction care programs at Mistral treatment clinic of Brijder. The product has to be based on a tangible interaction driven by a game element....