Remote Monitoring Patients Through Smartphone Applications: Michelle Chen, PhD

WATCH TIME: 3 minutes

“The ultimate goal is that if we can have this assess real-life functioning, that's going to be more applicable in their everyday life.”

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, it has been a challenge for researchers to recruit patients to participate in studies, especially when it comes to the older population as they are more cautious about their health status. Having virtual platforms that allow patients and clinicians to connect presents itself as a different approach to obtain data for studies.

Digital methods of recruiting patients for research can be more accessible to those participating and also improve compliance throughout the study. As time passes, more researchers may move their assessments to completely remote to continue to take advantage of the virtual benefits.

Michelle Chen, PhD, neuropsychologist, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, spoke with NeurologyLive® in a recent interview about how remotely monitoring patients through a smartphone is a simple and effective application for data collection. She mentioned how assessing activities that patients do in their day-to-day life is able to reveal more about their brain functioning. Chen also spoke on the long-term goals of assessing patients virtually in connection to her study on patients with multiple sclerosis and keystroke dynamics.¹

REFERENCES
1. Chen MH, Leow A, Ross MK, et al. Associations between smartphone keystroke dynamics and cognition in MS. Digit Health. 2022;8:20552076221143234. Published 2022 Dec 5. doi:10.1177/20552076221143234