Look of Life

The use of virtual reality (VR) shows promising results in improving the emotional wellbeing of cancer patients, reducing anxiety, depression, and pain symptoms. No data exist concerning the use of VR in cancer patients assisted at home. The ANT Foundation decided to conduct a pilot study to test the use of VR in cancer patients assisted at home. Fifty-eight ANT patients were randomized and assigned to a control group that didn't use VR devices and to an experimental group that used them. The primary objective of the pilot study was to determine whether VR device could be a viable instrument in homecare patients. Furthermore, the aim of the study was to discover if VR could have beneficial effects on patients' quality of life as well as discover which kind of videos were more effective. The innovative aspect of this study was to test the use of VR directly at home of patients, proposing a use of VR that is compatible with the needs and the daily rhythms of families, and investigating its effectiveness through appropriate validated psychometric questionnaires and semi-structured interviews.

Whole-Body Cryotherapy as a Tool to Improving of Infrared Thermography Diagnostics

The use of low temperature on the whole human body switched on beneficial physiological reactions. Whole-body cryotherapy is used as a part of rehabilitation. There were reported studies of thermal imaging performed due to whole body cooling in case of patients suffering from different diseases that showed a significant enhancement of the skin temperature gradient observed after cryotherapy. That explains that such therapeutic technique like whole-body cryotherapy can be used as a part of infrared thermography diagnostic procedure.

The Role of Self-Efficacy and Aging in Managing Disease

In 1900, life expectancy in the U.S. was 47 years and infectious diseases were the leading cause of mortality; today, life expectancy in the U.S. is almost 80 years and chronic diseases are the leading causes of mortality. Eighty percent of adults 65 and older have multiple chronic health conditions, which are costly to treat. Offering older adults an evidence-based self-management program can reduce medical costs and improve patient outcomes and quality of life. Research has shown that self-efficacy is a key factor in effective self-management programs. The Chronic Disease Self-Management Program (CDSMP) is an evidence-based program that helps patients to boost their self-efficacy and improve their disease self-management, under the supervision of a physician. In addition, the use of evidence-based complementary modalities is recommended as part of an integrative approach to self-management to help patients manage the daily anger, fear, and depression that frequently accompany living with an incurable disease.

An Innovative, Information and Communication Technology Supported Approach, Towards Effective Chronic Pain Management

Chronic pain is one of the most common health problems affecting daily activity, employment, relationships and emotional functioning. Unfortunately, the lack of specialized health care personnel, and the high heterogeneity in terms of clinical manifestation and treatment results contribute in failure to manage efficiently and effectively pain. Information and communication technology (ICT) can be a valuable tool, enabling patients and healthcare professional empowerment and better self-management of pain. To this direction, this article reports on the design of a novel technical infrastructure to support effectively and efficiently chronic pain management, based on an Intelligent Personal Health Record platform on top of already available ICT tools. The designed platform targets, among others, at improving the knowledge on the patient data, effectiveness and adherence to treatment and providing effective communication channels between patients and healthcare professionals.

OpTrak

This article describes the structure and functionality of OpTrak, a decentralized app implemented using the Ethereum blockchain that targets the opioid epidemic currently plaguing the United States. Over-prescription and distribution of opioids cost the national healthcare system over $78 billion every year. Problems persist in every stage of the process, from doctors prescribing the medication to the pharmacists fulfilling prescriptions. These problems arise from a combination of factors, including lack of accountability, transparency, and reliability in the current prescription drug monitoring programs. This work provides three key contributions to research on a technical approach to mitigate the opioid epidemic. First, the authors pinpoint key problems in the current opioid prescription system. Second, they propose an integrated approach for addressing the problems by leveraging distributed ledgers, focusing on blockchain technology. Third, the authors describe the structure and functionality of OpTrak that allows a consortium of care providers to exchange patient prescription data securely.

Research-Based Applied Psychophysiology

Recent research indicates that yoga can be effective for reducing both musculoskeletal conditions and stress. In the workplace, musculoskeletal conditions and stress are the two most common reasons for sickness absence. The World Health Organisation has identified the workplace as a priority area for promoting good health. As a result, yoga is increasingly being offered in workplace settings to improve the physical health and mental wellbeing of employees. In September 2014, a comprehensive search of relevant electronic databases was performed to determine the effectiveness of yoga in workplace settings. Eight randomised trials met the inclusion criteria. The results showed that the effectiveness of yoga in the workplace was strong for musculoskeletal conditions, moderate for perceived stress, limited for sleep quality and conflicting for heart rate variability. Overall, this evidence is promising, yet limited due to a lack of high quality studies of yoga in workplace settings.

Participant Perspectives on Benefits and Challenges of Engaging in an Online Pain Self-Management Program

The purpose of this study was to evaluate participants' perspectives after engaging in an 8-week online pain self-management program. Unexplored qualitative data for this analysis were collected via secure online surveys distributed during a previously published randomized controlled trial. Participants for the present study were 47 adults prescribed opioid medicines for chronic pain. A qualitative descriptive approach using content analysis methods was used to identify common themes regarding online participation. Three themes described the benefits of the program and included: positive reframing, improved accountability, and feeling supported. Two themes described how participants would like to improve the program experience and included: ease of use and desire for personalizing. Participants' insights can assist health care providers and program developers in understanding how online programs may improve chronic disease self-management for a multitude of health problems.

Overview of Multicomponent Solid Forms

Multi-drug therapy involves the simultaneous or sequential administration of two or more drugs with similar or different mechanisms of action and is efficient in combating various ailments such as cancer, diabetes, and rheumatoid arthritis. It has emerged advantageous due to larger therapeutic benefits, an increase in patient compliance, lower administrative costs, and reduced number of prescriptions. In the recent past, the clinical success of the Novartis product Entresto (sacubitril, disodium valsartan and water) and Esteve product E-58425 (tramadol and celecoxib) has boosted the development of multi-drug . The present article is hence designed to provide an overview of different multicomponent addicts which provide option of combining the drugs at a supramolecular level (nano-sized level). Key features of multi-drug cocrystal, co-amorphous system and eutectics are described with major emphasis on screening tools, preparation methods, characterization techniques, biopharmaceutical aspects and scale up.

Pain Assessment through Facial Expression

Pain, assumed to be the fifth vital sign, is an important symptom that needs to be adequately assessed in heath care. The visual changes reflected on the face of a person in pain may be apparent for only a few seconds and occur instinctively. Tracking these changes is a difficult and time-consuming process in a clinical setting. This is why it is motivating researchers and experts from medical, psychology and computer fields to conduct inter-disciplinary research in capturing facial expressions. This chapter contains a comprehensive review of technologies in the study of facial expression along with its application in pain assessment. The facial expressions of pain in children's (0-2 years) and in non-communicative patients need to be recognized as they are of utmost importance for proper diagnosis. Well designed computerized methodologies would streamline the process of patient assessment, increasing its accessibility to physicians and improving quality of care.