New game app keeps teens on track taking their asthma medicine

November 6th, 2013

Categories: Applications, Devices

The whole point of this app is to get teens to the point where they don’t need it, said Robert Kenyon (shown here).
The whole point of this app is to get teens to the point where they don’t need it, said Robert Kenyon (shown here).

About

In Fall 2013, Christina Cala, a graduate student at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, spent her four-day practicum at the UIC Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL), and wrote an article on EVL’s asthma project. Excerpts appear below.

New game app keeps teens on track taking their asthma medicine
by I. Christina Cala, MEDILL Reports Chicago
Nov 06, 2013

Wheezing, coughing, shortness of breath - asthma medicines help keep such symptoms at bay. But you have to take the puffs and many teens forget or ignore the regimen.

That may seem like no big deal - an emergency inhaler can solve the problem - but missing those daily doses can lead to emergency room visits, hospitalization and even death.

Now there’s a new game app to keep teens on track with their daily doses.

It’s all couched in a basketball game app developed by Rush University Medical Center and the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Electronic Visualization Lab. Take your meds and you get a slam dunk…

Read the entire article

The asthma project was profiled in an earlier article by Mitch Smith of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

Treating asthma? There’s an app for that
by Mitch Smith, Medill Reports Chicago
November 14, 2012

Rush University Medical Center also publicized this project in an earlier article.

Unique Cell Phone Application Targets Minority Adolescents With Asthma to Reduce Exacerbations, Emergency Room Visits
Nancy DiFiore, Rush University Medical Center
June 17, 2013

Beginning in Fall 2011, the UIC Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) pilot project “Human Augmentics for Sustained Wellbeing” has received funding from the UIC Center for Clinical and Translational Science (CCTS), award CCTS-0512-07. The award, to computer science professors Jason Leigh and Robert Kenyon, communications professor Steve Jones, and psychology professor Stellan Ohlsson, in partnership with Giselle Mosnaim of Rush University Medical Center, focuses on the proper use of daily asthma controller medications in urban high-risk adolescents. More generally, the pilot study illustrates how the availability of a compelling “health dashboard” smartphone application may inform and persuade individuals to lead healthier lifestyles.

Resources

URL