source: British Journal of Haematology

year: 2018

authors: Jonassaint CR, Birenboim A, Jorgensen DR, Novelli EM, Rosso AL

Individuals living with sickle cell disease (SCD) are at risk for significant health complications including chronic pain, neuropsychological dysfunction, depression and poor mobility (Vichinsky et al, 2010; Zempsky et al, 2013; Jonassaint et al, 2016). Monitoring the day-to-day health of patients often requires burdensome daily symptoms diaries or expensive, time-consuming clinical tests. There are limited objective methods for capturing health outcomes of patients outside the clinic.

Location data obtained by global positioning systems (GPSs) are increasingly used to assess physical mobility and activity spaces (Loveday et al, 2015). Activity space was found to increase with improvements in functioning post-surgery (Barzilay et al, 2011) and is smaller in older adults with depressive symptoms (Kerr et al, 2012) and cognitive deficits (Wettstein et al, 2015). However, no reported studies have assessed the utility of GPS activity space measures in younger populations with a chronic condition, such as SCD. GPS could provide an objective measure of health and wellbeing for SCD patients, as well as a method for early identification of patients at risk for poor outcomes.

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