Rheumatic Disease Research Driven by Smartwatch Data

Rheumatoid arthritis patients overwhelmingly embraced the idea of tracing outcomes by smartwatch, shows a study due to be presented on Monday at the American College of Rheumatology annual meeting.

The results of this study will be presented by Ben Nowell, Ph.D., director of Patient-Centered Research at CreakyJoints, which is part of the Global Healthy Living Foundation.

The organization is teaming up with Eli Lilly to determine if smartwatch technology can be used in rheumatic disease research. The technology has been proven useful in other healthcare research studies, including one by Eli Lilly in which researchers are trying to determine if it can be used to identify early signs of dementia.

The study by CreakyJoints uses data from its ArthritisPower digital app in which 278 patients with rheumatoid arthritis participated in the final analysis which, over the course of 84 days, recorded how often patients successfully completed data collection for this study, which is called the Digital Tracking of Arthritis Longitudinally (DIGITAL) rheumatoid arthritis study

The findings showed that patients were least likely to adhere to data collection daily patient-reported outcomes (57 percent participation), but highest for weekly reporting (87%). Smartwatch data was reported to be (82%).

Patients experiencing high pain levels and low levels of physical function were more likely to complete the patient reported outcomes period, but not adhere to smartwatch use.

"Given the wide spread availability of things like smartphones and smartwatches...it's important for us to understand patients willingness for the use of these devices and to be able to characterize their ability to adhere to digital study tasks," Nowell said.

_____________________

ABSTRACT NUMBER: 1979. "Participant Engagement and Adherence in an ArthritisPower Real-World Study to Capture Smartwatch and Patient-Reported Outcome Data Among Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients," William Nowell. Monday, November 9, 2020.