New research published in the journal Nature suggests that the use of iPhones and Apple Watches can help monitor rheumatoid arthritis by collecting health data such as mobility, fatigue and dexterity.
For the analysis, the researchers involved carried out a 14-day observational study to understand whether “digital measures of health status captured during everyday life could considerably enhance current clinical assessments of rheumatoid arthritis.”
How the study was carried out
Imagem: Shutterstock / Puwadol Jaturawutthichai
An inflammatory rheumatic disease, rheumatoid arthritis (RA) causes joint inflammation, which results in swelling and pain. According to the EpiReumaPt study, by the Portuguese Society of Rheumatology (SPR), around 70,000 Portuguese people are affected by the disease.
RA can manifest itself as polyarthritis (when it affects three or more joints), bilateral (when it affects joints on both sides of the body), symmetrical (when it affects the same joints on both sides of the body), progressive, destructive and deforming.
“Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) follow subtle and unpredictable disease courses from patient to patient, with a progressive decline in physical function and quality of life over time – often leading to inability and difficulty performing many tasks of daily living. Symptoms of RA include joint pain or tenderness, joint swelling, morning stiffness, reduced joint range of motion (ROM), muscle pain, and fatigue,” the research detailed.
The study aimed to “investigate how digital health technologies (DHT), such as smartphones and wearables, could increase patient-reported outcomes (PRO) for determining RA status and severity.” To do this, he compared measurements from 30 patients with moderate to severe RA with data collected from 30 healthy people in the Healthy Controls (HC) group.
Using the data collected by the Apple Watch's passive sensors, researchers assessed general health, mobility, dexterity, fatigue, among other information. Based on this, the team developed a machine learning algorithm capable of distinguishing a patient's rheumatoid arthritis status and estimating the severity of symptoms.
First results are promising
Image: Disclosure / Apple
According to the researchers, in recent years, DHTs in wearables and mobile applications have shown promise for objectively measuring participants' symptoms during daily life. And the first results of the tests carried out by the study followed the same positive path.
“Daily results from wearable sensors robustly distinguished participants with RA from participants with HC,” highlights the research.
In addition to being able to differentiate patients with arthritis from healthy patients, these devices offer another great advantage:
“Currently, methods for measuring the impact of RA on daily life rely on infrequent clinic visits that may occur every 3-4 months, with assessments that rely on a combination of clinician-determined subjective scores and patient-reported outcomes. However, these have inherent limitations in that they can be subjective and prone to recall bias. […] These digital health technology (DHT) tools have been shown to increase study engagement, improve patient convenience, streamline the collection of PROs, and potentially generate more frequent and accurate data that can characterize disease,” the investigators explain in the paper.
For professionals involved in the study, wearables like the Apple Watch could become great allies for doctors to obtain better data on the severity levels of self-reported rheumatoid arthritis symptoms. All of this, of course, as a complement, along with patients' reports and doctors' physical examinations.