A pilot study of mobile phone-based therapy for obese patients

Abstract

We conducted a pilot study to assess the feasibility of a web-based therapy management system with mobile phone access to support obese patients. A total of 25 patients participated in the study. The mean age of the patients was 48 years. The mean body mass index of the patients at recruitment was 35.6 kg/m(2). The mean observation period was 70 days. A total of 361 successful data transmissions was performed -- the mean number of transmissions per patient was 14. The total number of outgoing reminder messages was 123, corresponding to 4.9 reminder messages per patient. At the end of the study, there were significant reductions of 2.4 cm in abdominal girth (P < 0.001), 2.4 kg in bodyweight (P < 0.001) and 0.78 kg/m(2) in body mass index (P < 0.001). In a questionnaire at the end of the study, the majority of the participants gave answers that indicated a positive attitude towards the system. The pilot study showed that mobile phones can be utilized as patient terminals for therapy in patients suffering from obesity.

New and Emerging Weight Management Strategies for Busy Ambulatory Settings

“…Thirteen studies were identified, and of these, 4 met our inclusion criteria (Table 3). Studies were excluded because they did not report weight loss outcomes (nϭ3), [82][83][84] did not use a randomized controlled design (nϭ4), [85][86][87][88] or the phones used were standard landline phones (nϭ2). 49,89 All 4 studies enrolled primarily white women and were conducted in the community.…”

Information Technology Aspects of Integrated Cardiac Rhythm Disease Management

“…PICARD was designed so as to be able to receive data from remote monitoring systems and was already used in several studies concerning heart failure (Scherr et al, 2009), psoriasis (Hayn et al, 2009), diabetes (Kollmann et al, 2007c), and adipositas (Morak et al, 2008). Currently it is also used in a routine remote monitoring scenario (Kastner et al, 2010).…”

Effectiveness of Cellular Phone-Based Interventions for Weight Loss in Overweight and Obese Adults: A Systematic Review

“…Chronic diseases such as hypertension, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and stroke are often a result of carrying this excessive weight [3][4][5][6]. The ramifications of being overweight and obesity extend beyond the aforementioned health consequences.…”