If you have diabetes or foot ulcers, a new smartphone app will help you manage your disease by tracking and storing blood sugar levels and weight, and, through the use of the smartphone’s camera, capturing and analyzing images of foot ulcers, according to a story by Joseph Goedert at healthdatamanagement.com.
Worcester Polytechnic Institute is in the process of developing this smartphone app, along with diabetes and wound care specialists at the University of Massachusetts Medical School Goedert writes. The four-year project, in which the team will develop and test the app, will be paid for “with a $1.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation,” according to the story. The app will be integrated wirelessly with a personal glucose meter and scale.
The app will tell patients the status of their ulcers, such as whether they are healing, stable or getting worse, to help them decide if an office visit is necessary, according to the story.
Under the four-year program, the first two years will be spent on developing a prototype with the second two years testing the app in a clinical trial at the medical school.
According to the American Diabetes Association (ADA), almost 26 million people – both adults and children – have diabetes in this country. About one in every 400 children and adolescents has diabetes. Foot ulcers are often a debilitating side effect of diabetes. Other complications include heart and kidney disease, high blood pressure and even blindness.
Foot problems most often come about when there is nerve damage, also called neuropathy, which results in loss of feeling in your feet, according to the ADA. “Poor blood flow or changes in the shape of your feet or toes may also cause problems,” according to the Web site.
If your ulcer is not healing and your circulation poor, the ADA advises patients to check with their doctors to see if they need to be referred to a vascular surgeon. This is where the app comes in, allowing patients to see earlier when wounds may not be healing and in need of more critical care before the situation gets worse.
Left untreated, foot ulcers could cause amputation of the affected limb.
Deborah DiSesa Hirsch is an award-winning health and technology writer who has worked for newspapers, magazines and IBM in her 20-year career. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.Edited by
Jennifer Russell
