Digital health apps to transform cancer and dementia care – HeraldScotland

When Bruce Vickery was diagnosed with prostrate cancer in 2018 he would have found a resource like the OWise app invaluable.

The 75-year-old was "overwhelmed with information and paper work" during his treatment.

The app, developed by Px Healthcare, improves patient's experiences by centralising and personalising medical information, tracking symptoms and side effects and granting almost immediate access to clinicians to share real time data therefore streamlining appointments and information exchange.

He said: "It would have been wonderful to have the information stored in the app at my finger tips because it gives you access to a lot of other things that you wouldn't otherwise have access to."

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The technology would have helped Mr Vickery in his darkest moments, he says: "One of the things that happens when you have cancer is you sometimes have those lonely times where you wonder what's going to happen to you and with the app you could type it in directly and get an answer so you wouldn't have to wait to see your doctor."

Mr Vickery was alerted to the development of the app after his recovery but he is so passionate about the benefits it could bring that he is working with founder Anne Bruinvels to help inform the design of the new technology that will launch later this year.

He said: "It's not going to benefit me substantially as I've been through it but it's going to benefit those who come after me if it's right. It will make what I've been through worth it."

Ms Bruinvels, a biomedical scientist and pharmacist, developed the original OWise app in 2011 to support women living with breast cancer from the moment of diagnosis through personalised medical information and a range of tracking tools to measure how they were responding to treatment. The app launched in 2016 and has been such a success that the prostate cancer app is now in development.

The app contains glossaries and helps people prepare for appointments with consultants. The app can even record meetings so information can be played at a later date to help them process what they have been told.

Ms Bruinvels said: "It is essentially a one stop shop for patients from day one of diagnosis to support them and letting them track and trace how they respond to more than 30 different side effects and symptoms, including from pain and nausea. It's a companion really. If the diagnosis changes then the questions and information offered will respond."

Working with NHS Lothian, the system has been integrated with electronic patient record systems, allowing health care professionals to monitor their patients in real time with people tracking how they feel at home and feeding back through the app.

Px Healthcare have won funding from Nesta and the Scottish Government to develop their latest app which will help more than 3,000 men in the country who develop prostate cancer every year.

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Scotland is a hub for digital health with developments being applied in NHS and care settings. Another innovation designed to streamline care is the CogniHealth app, a one-stop information shop for family carers of people living with and affected by dementia.

Designed by Pooja Jain, who studied neuroscience at Edinburgh University, CogniHealth enables personalised care by providing guidance and information to ensure carers are supported.

The artificial intelligence developed by Ms Jain to personalise solutions, enable early interventions and even predict negative outcomes such as falls and dehydration and prevent them.

Ms Jain, who was inspired to create the dementia software after her own grandfather was diagnosed with the condition, said: "The app provides holistic support on a day-to-day basis through education materials, self care information and symptom checkers. The information is personalised because of how the disease progresses is different for all."

With more than 3000 Scottish users on the platform, Ms Jain is trying to understand what happens between doctor and hospital appointments, provide trusted information and capture data to inform individual care and hopes that this model will eventually be applied to other conditions.

The preventative aspect of the app - whereby analysis of data"predicts what's going to happen and stop it" - could have huge impacts on dementia care.

Ms Jain said: "If, for example, balance is becoming an issue we can share information to catch it early on."

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: We recognise the importance of using digital to provide better, more person-centred care and Scotland is already recognised as an international leader in delivery of technology enabled care services. We are building on this reputation through our digital health and care strategy which focuses on the importance of accessing information using everyday technology."

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Digital health apps to transform cancer and dementia care - HeraldScotland