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Health monitor: An intelligent platform for the monitorization of patients of chronic diseases

Abstract:

A chronic disease is a condition of long duration and generally slow progression. This kind of disease is permanent and leaves residual disability. Chronic diseases require special training of the patient for rehabilitation and require a long period of supervision, observation, and care by part of general practitioners and other healthcare professionals. This task represents a great investment that may come unbearable to healthcare organizations, especially when the number of patients increases day by day. Therefore, it is necessary to promote a healthy lifestyle among patients to improve their quality of life as well as to reduce the investment needed to treat these patients. Hence, the main goal of this work is to present Health Monitor, a platform for the self-management of chronic diseases, more specifically for diabetes mellitus and hypertension. Health monitor allows patients to monitor aspects such as physical activity, diet, medication, and mood. Also, this platform provides health recommendations based on the data collected by the motorization process. Health Monitor was evaluated regarding the effectiveness of the health recommender module. This evaluation involved real patients with diabetes mellitus and hypertension and healthcare professionals from an Ecuadorian hospital. The evaluation results show that Health Monitor provides recommendations that can enhance patients’ quality of life.