Empower your Trial - How diabetes studies benefit from digitalisation

For diabetes patients, constantly measuring blood glucose and collecting your health data is part of everyday life. New technologies allow a deeper insight into the patient's daily life and create added value for data collection in diabetes studies.

 

Patient Apps: Digital Patient Diary for Diabetes Studies

Diabetes patients need to pay attention to sufficient exercise and the right diet, as these influence blood sugar and insulin levels. So it makes sense for diabetics to document meals and physical activity in a patient app. Like in a diary, they record their daily well-being and symptoms, such as tiredness, lack of strength or visual disturbances.

Apps of this kind are increasingly being used in diabetes studies. On the one hand, they facilitate the collection of data that patients enter directly via their own smartphone. On the other hand, studies are becoming more exciting for patients: Some apps also make use of elements of gamification by presenting patients with playful challenges in daily tasks.

This motivates participants in diabetes studies and ensures regular use. In this way, the app not only supports adherence to diet and exercise plans, but also increases data frequency.

The data frequency is customisable. Whether weekly or daily - the app provides patients with licensed questionnaires tailored to the respective study. Visits to practices or clinics are no longer necessary. Instead, the app measures the development of health status and quality of life and traces the data back to daily behaviour.

 

Integrate wearables: Making sense of data streams in diabetes studies

Documenting values from blood glucose meters or information about diet and exercise on a daily basis is always time-consuming for patients. To relieve them of as much work as possible when participating in diabetes studies, mobile wearables can be linked to the patient app. Smartwatches with integrated fitness trackers determine not only the number of steps but also the duration and calorie consumption of training units.

In addition, blood glucose meters or insulin pumps are linked to the app. These two devices are part of everyday life especially for type 1 diabetics with insulin deficiency and strongly fluctuating blood sugar. The following variables are determined:

• Glucose level

• Carbohydrate intake

• HbA1c

• Insulin

• Triglycerides

• C-peptides

Depending on the state of health, doctors decide on further therapy steps such as medication, diet or physical exercise on the basis of current values. Linking real-time data with therapy decisions shows how patients react to measures.

Targeted data collection brings the greatest possible benefit to diabetes studies. Like electronic questionnaires, integrated devices and values to be documented are customisable for each study. Thus, only data that add value to the study results are collected.

 

Devices and apps in diabetes studies: New results thanks to new technologies

The integration of devices and apps from the medical treatment sector offers more precise readings and more targeted data collection for diabetes studies. This includes for example the use of temperature sensor technology to regularly measure the foot temperature of diabetes patients.

Nerve damage as well as circulatory disorders make the perception and natural healing process of the smallest injuries more difficult. If wounds are left untreated, ulcers or septic diseases can develop.

Complications like these can be avoided by regular, highly sensitive temperature measurements. They identify circulatory disorders and burgeoning inflammations at an early stage, weeks before the attending physician has a chance to detect them.

New technologies complement the professional expertise of doctors and offer new possibilities for data collection and assessment in diabetes studies. Patients also get an overview of their disease progression. This allows them to more quickly recognise a deterioration in their health or potential complications in addition to regular visits and self-monitoring.

 

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