Identifying Parental Perspectives on Healthy Eating and Mobile Application Usage

The aging population worldwide is expected to increase the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease. As there is no medical curative treatment for this disease to date, alternative treatments have been applied to improve the patient’s brain and general health. One of these efforts includes providing Alzheimer’s patients with proper food and nutrition. In this paper, we propose a knowledge-powered personalized virtual coach to provide diet and nutrition assistance to patients of Alzheimer’s and/or their informal caregivers. The virtual coach is built on top of an ontology-enhanced knowledge base containing knowledge about patients, Alzheimer’s disease, food, and nutrition. Semantics-based searching and reasoning are performed on the knowledgebase to get personalized context-aware recommendation and education about healthy eating for Alzheimer’s patients. The proposed system has been implemented as a mobile application. Evaluation based on use cases has demonstrated the usefulness of this tool.

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ADDietCoach

International Journal of E-Health and Medical Communications ◽

10.4018/ijehmc.20211101.oa6 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (6) ◽

pp. 1-18

Author(s):

Rasha Hendawi ◽

Juan Li ◽

Shadi Alian

Keyword(s):

Alzheimer’S Disease ◽

Alzheimer's Disease ◽

Knowledge Base ◽

Healthy Eating ◽

General Health ◽

Mobile Application ◽

Use Cases ◽

Context Aware ◽

Food And Nutrition ◽

Nutrition Assistance

The aging population worldwide is expected to increase the prevalence of Alzheimer's disease. As there is no medical curative treatment for this disease to date, alternative treatments have been applied to improve the patient's brain and general health. One of these efforts includes providing Alzheimer's patients with proper food and nutrition. In this paper, the authors propose a knowledge-powered personalized virtual coach to provide diet and nutrition assistance to patients of Alzheimer's and/or their informal caregivers. The virtual coach is built on top of an ontology-enhanced knowledge base containing knowledge about patients, Alzheimer's disease, food, and nutrition. Semantics-based searching and reasoning are performed on the knowledge base to get personalized context-aware recommendation and education about healthy eating for Alzheimer's patients. The proposed system has been implemented as a mobile application. Evaluation based on use cases has demonstrated the usefulness of this tool.

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Effectiveness of mobile application on changing weight, healthy eating habits, and quality of life in children and adolescents with obesity: a randomized controlled trial

BMC Pediatrics ◽

10.1186/s12887-021-02980-x ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Narueporn Likhitweerawong ◽

Nonglak Boonchooduang ◽

Kulnipa Kittisakmontri ◽

Weerasak Chonchaiya ◽

Orawan Louthrenoo

Keyword(s):

Quality Of Life ◽

Children And Adolescents ◽

Healthy Eating ◽

Mobile Application ◽

Standard Care ◽

Eating Behaviors ◽

Intervention Group ◽

Care Group ◽

Healthy Eating Behaviors

Abstract Background A technology-based intervention, such as a mobile application, was a growing interest and potentially effective modality for treating obesity. The study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the OBEST, a new mobile/tablet-based application in reducing weight and encouraging healthy eating behaviors and quality of life in children with obesity. The application could assist healthcare professionals to treat children and adolescents with obesity. Methods A randomized controlled trial was conducted in the hospital and school settings in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Seventy-seven children and adolescents with obesity were randomized into two groups; one received standard care combined with the OBEST application, and the other received only standard care. The outcomes were changes in weight, healthy eating behaviors, and quality of life assessed by the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL) from baseline to six-month follow-up between the two groups. Results The results showed that the intervention group reduced more body mass index (BMI) and had a higher number of participants engaging in healthy eating behaviors than the standard care group but did not reach a statistically significant level, except for less frequent consumption of fast food. The participants in the intervention group had 4.5 times higher odds of decreased engaging in fast-food consumption than the standard care group at 6 months follow-up (odds ratio, 4.5 [95% CI, 1.41 to 14.35]). There were no statistically significant changes in PedsQL scores over 6 months in between groups. Conclusions The current study was unable to detect a significant effect of the OBEST application as an adjunct tool to the standard treatment on reducing weight in obese children and adolescents. However, the mobile application might help to increase engaging in healthy eating behaviors. Further studies with a larger sample are needed to confirm our findings. Trial registration The trial was retrospectively registered at the Thai Clinical Trials Registry (trial registration number: TCTR20200604008, on June 4, 2020).

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Effects of Nutrition Education Supported by Mobile Application on Weight Loss and Quality of Life: A Randomized Controlled Trial

10.21203/rs.3.rs-30619/v1 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Doga Peksever ◽

Selda Seckiner ◽

Reci Meseri

Keyword(s):

Quality Of Life ◽

Weight Loss ◽

Nutrition Education ◽

Healthy Eating ◽

Mobile Applications ◽

Mobile Application ◽

Self Esteem ◽

Anthropometric Measurements ◽

Randomized Controlled

Abstract Background Obesity is a growing health problem which affects people from all age groups all over the world. Obese people do not feel motivated enough to change their lifestyle behaviors. Mobile applications can be used to motivate people.Objective To evaluate effect of nutrition education supported by MOtiVE mobile application on weight loss and quality of life (QoL).Methods In this randomized-controlled study, 79 overweight/obese adult patients who presented to University Hospital Outpatient Clinic between March-September 2018 to consult a dietitian were included. All the participants were provided a weight-loss diet program by the dietitian. Then, participants were randomized to experimental and control groups. During the first interview, all participants completed the questionnaire and anthropometric measurements were done. BMI, the scores obtained from different Quality of Life scales and Healthy Eating Index (HEI) were the dependent variables. The participants in the experimental group were provided with daily messages for 3 months via MOtiVE mobile application designed solely for this study. All the participants were asked to present three months later for a follow-up appointment. Using SPSS 25.0, change in BMI, QoL scores and other variables within both groups was assessed via Wilcoxon signed-rank test and McNemar chi-square test. p < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.Results Although 39 cases and 40 controls took the first test, 20 cases and 18 controls participants completed the study. The mean BMI decreased significantly in both groups being more predominant in cases as from 33.8 ± 6.0 kg/m2 to 32.8 ± 5.8 kg/m2(p = 0.001) in cases and from 33.3 ± 5.0 kg/m2 to 32.2 ± 4.7 kg/m2 (p = 0.006) in controls. Moreover, waist circumference decreased (p = 0.029), self-esteem (p = 0.035) and healthy eating scores (p = 0.007) increased only in cases significantly.Conclusions Nutrition education supported by MOtiVE mobile application improved anthropometric measurements, self-esteem, quality of life and healthy eating habits of the overweight/obese participants. Free mobile applications can be used in increasing motivation to adopt new behaviors in order to tackle obesity.Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04026971

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