The health and well-being of informal caregivers often take a backseat to those that they care for. While systems, technologies, and services that provide care and support for those with chronic illnesses are established and continuously improved, those that support informal caregivers are less explored. An international survey about motivations to use mHealth technologies was posted to online ...

Background: Consumer-based activity trackers are increasingly used in research, as they have the potential to promote increased physical activity and can be used for estimating physical activity among participants. However, the accuracy of newer consumer-based devices is mostly unknown, and validation studies are needed.<p> <p>Objective: The objective of this study was to compare the Polar Vantage ...

This review provides an overview of the existing research on social media, autism, and physical activity. We searched for publications on PubMed, PsycInfo, Embase, Education source, ERIC, IEEE Xplore, and the proceedings from conferences on health informatics and autism. Eight studies were included in this review. Studies reported mixed results on the link between social media, physical activity, ...

<i>Background</i> - Lack of physical activity (PA) is a risk factor for death and non-communicable disease. Despite this, more than one fourth of adults worldwide do not follow PA guidelines. As part of a feasibility study to test a complex intervention for increasing PA, we included a consumer-based activity tracker (AT) as a tool to measure PA outcomes and to track heart rate during exercise ...

The rapid improvement in mobile health technologies revolutionized what and how people can self-record and manage data. This massive amount of information accumulated by these technologies has potentially many applications beyond personal need, i.e. for public health. A challenge with collecting this data is to motivate people to share this data for the benefit of all. The purpose of this study is ...

Performing regular physical activity can be challenging. Integrating chatbots with social media platforms and physical activity sensors can potentially increase physical activity. The objective of this study was to identify design preferences for integrating an activity tracker supported chatbot in a social media platform. Norwegian adults (n=120) responded to an ad-hoc online survey. User preferences ...

Background: New fitness trackers and smartwatches are released to the consumer market every year. These devices are equipped with different sensors, algorithms, and accompanying mobile apps. With recent advances in mobile sensor technology, privately collected physical activity data can be used as an addition to existing methods for health data collection in research. Furthermore, data collected ...

Regularly conducted population cohort studies contribute important new knowledge to medical research. A high participation rate is required in these types of studies in order to claim representativeness and validity of study results. Participation rates are declining worldwide, and re-searchers are challenged to develop new data collection strategies and tools to motivate people to participate. The ...

<i>Background</i> - Wearable devices with an ability to collect various type of physiological data are increasingly becoming seamlessly integrated into everyday life of people. In the area of electronic health (eHealth), many of these devices provide remote transfer of health data, as a result of the increasing need for ambulatory monitoring of patients. This has a potential to reduce the cost ...