New Techniques Provide Researchers with "Real-Life" Data on Key Health Measures
Newswise — Philadelphia, Pa. (May 14, 2012) – New techniques of ambulatory assessment are providing researchers with valuable sources of data for understanding the psychiatric and psychological factors affecting health and disease. The May special issue of Psychosomatic Medicine, the official journal of the American Psychosomatic Society, is devoted to reports on recent advances in computer technology, medical devices, and data analysis that are enabling ever-greater sophistication in the research monitoring of people in their natural habitats.
Ambulatory monitoring—the science of health and disease measurements in daily life—involves real-life assessment of moods, stress and symptoms, as well as blood pressure, hormone levels, and a wide range of other biological or environmental measures. The special issue reports on new and emerging techniques that allow scientists to listen in on ambient sounds, test glucose levels round-the-clock, and periodically "beep" research participants to remind them to complete brief questionnaires about their mood or pain, or to produce a saliva sample that can be tested for stress hormones.
New Technologies, New Uses for Ambulatory Monitoring"There have been so many exciting developments in recent years,” said Thomas Kubiak, PhD, of Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, who served as guest editor of the special issue along with Arthur A. Stone, PhD, of Stony Brook (N.Y.) University. “To highlight just one, there is the availability of unobtrusive monitoring, behavioral observation of the social context, like the EAR method.”
Matthias R. Mehl, PhD, of University of Arizona and colleagues performed a study using the EAR, or "Electronically Activated Recorder"—a smartphone App programmed to periodically collect snippets of audio from research participants’ environment. The recordings are transcribed and analyzed after research participants are given the opportunity to delete audio segments that they would like to remain private.
One potential use is to study how levels of social support affect the progression of chronic diseases, such as cancer and heart disease. By providing a tool for objectively registering interactions, the EAR method might help to overcome bias related to the use of questionnaires asking people to rate their level of social support. Other topics covered in the special issue include:• The use of continuous glucose monitoring in diabetes, revealing fluctuations in blood sugar that otherwise go unnoticed. These new systems hold promise “for answering key questions regarding the relationship of glucose to mood, stress, health behaviors, and behavioral interventions,” according to research led by Julie Wagner, PhD, of the University of Connecticut.• The use of ambulatory assessment techniques to improve research into the genetic basis of behavioral disorders. Patrick H. Finan, PhD, of the Johns Hopkins University and colleagues believe that studies using ambulatory assessment may help to reduce the bias inherent in asking research participants to recall past events.• The use of ambulatory methods for documenting fluctuations in pain, rather than just pain averages over time. Dr. Stone and colleagues suggest that average pain scores may not always capture what is most important to patients themselves. Some patients may value spending more of their time symptom-free and others may wish to reduce "the roller coaster of symptom level variability," they wrote.
The special issue also includes articles on new statistical techniques for handling ambulatory assessment data. “A very important point in my view is that statistical methods have developed considerably compared to the 1990s,” Dr. Kubiak added. “Ambulatory monitoring yields incredibly rich data, and in the past years there has been vast progress in statistical methods to deal with this kind of data to answer hypotheses, to examine processes, and to take the full advantage of the method.”
# # #
About Psychosomatic MedicinePsychosomatic Medicine, Journal of Biobehavioral Medicine, founded in 1939, is the official peer-reviewed journal of the American Psychosomatic Society. It publishes experimental and clinical studies dealing with various aspects of the relationships among social, psychological, and behavioral factors and bodily processes in humans and animals. Psychosomatic Medicine, Journal of Biobehavioral Medicine is an international, interdisciplinary journal devoted to experimental and clinical investigation in behavioral biology, psychiatry, psychology, physiology, anthropology, and clinical medicine. The print journal is published nine times a year; most articles are published online ahead of print.
About the American Psychosomatic SocietyThe mission of the American Psychosomatic Society is to promote and advance the scientific understanding and multidisciplinary integration of biological, psychological, behavioral and social factors in human health and disease, and to foster the dissemination and application of this understanding in education and health care.
The American Psychosomatic Society is a worldwide community of scholars and clinicians dedicated to the scientific understanding of the interaction of mind, brain, body and social context in promoting health. The organization is devoted to biopsychosocial research and integrated clinical care, and to providing a forum via its website, Annual Meeting and journal, Psychosomatic Medicine, for sharing this research. Its members are from around the world, including specialists from all medical and health-related disciplines, the behavioral sciences, and the social sciences.
About Lippincott Williams & Wilkins Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW) is a leading international publisher of trusted content delivered in innovative ways to practitioners, professionals and students to learn new skills, stay current on their practice, and make important decisions to improve patient care and clinical outcomes. LWW is part of Wolters Kluwer Health, a leading global provider of information, business intelligence and point-of-care solutions for the healthcare industry. Wolters Kluwer Health is part of Wolters Kluwer, a market-leading global information services company with 2011 annual revenues of €3.4 billion ($4.7 billion).
RSS