Search results for "Health Informatics"
showing 10 items of 481 documents
Prevalence of Low Back Pain among Primary School Students from the City of Valencia (Spain)
2021
It is well-known that low back pain (LBP) prevalence is high among school-age children. However, literature concerning the initial onset of back pain between the ages of three and eleven years is scarce. The present study aims to analyze the prevalence of LBP in kindergarten and primary school students. A total of 278 (9.9 ± 2.1 years old
Design, development and validation of a system for automatic help to medical text understanding
2020
Abstract Objective The paper presents a web-based application, SIMPLE, that facilitates medical text comprehension by identifying the health-related terms of a medical text and providing the corresponding consumer terms and explanations. Background The comprehension of a medical text is often a difficult task for laypeople because it requires semantic abilities that can differ from a person to another, depending on his/her health-literacy level. Some systems have been developed for facilitating the comprehension of medical texts through text simplification, either syntactical or lexical. The ones dealing with lexical simplification usually replace the original text and do not provide additi…
Using Discharge Abstracts to Evaluate a Regional Perinatal Network: Assessment of the Linkage Procedure of Anonymous Data
2008
To assess the Burgundy perinatal network (18 obstetrical units; 18 500 births per year), discharge abstracts and additional data were collected for all mothers and newborns. In accordance with French law, data were rendered anonymous before statistical analysis, and were linked to patients using a specific procedure. This procedure allowed data concerning each mother to be linked to those for her newborn(s). This study showed that all mothers and newborns were included in the regional database; the data for all mothers were linked to those for their infant(s) in all cases. Additional data (gestational age) were obtained for 99.9% of newborns.
Automatic segmentation and 3D reconstruction of intravascular ultrasound images for a fast preliminar evaluation of vessel pathologies.
2007
Abstract Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) imaging is used along with X-ray coronary angiography to detect vessel pathologies. Manual analysis of IVUS images is slow and time-consuming and it is not feasible for clinical purposes. A semi-automated method is proposed to generate 3D reconstructions from IVUS video sequences, so that a fast diagnose can be easily done, quantifying plaque length and severity as well as plaque volume of the vessels under study. The methodology described in this work has four steps: a pre-processing of IVUS images, a segmentation of media–adventitia contour, a detection of intima and plaque and a 3D reconstruction of the vessel. Preprocessing is intended to remove …
A smart and operator independent system to delineate tumours in Positron Emission Tomography scans
2018
Abstract Positron Emission Tomography (PET) imaging has an enormous potential to improve radiation therapy treatment planning offering complementary functional information with respect to other anatomical imaging approaches. The aim of this study is to develop an operator independent, reliable, and clinically feasible system for biological tumour volume delineation from PET images. Under this design hypothesis, we combine several known approaches in an original way to deploy a system with a high level of automation. The proposed system automatically identifies the optimal region of interest around the tumour and performs a slice-by-slice marching local active contour segmentation. It automa…
Standalone Smartphone Cognitive Behavioral Therapy–Based Ecological Momentary Interventions to Increase Mental Health: Narrative Review
2020
Background A growing number of psychological interventions are delivered via smartphones with the aim of increasing the efficacy and effectiveness of these treatments and providing scalable access to interventions for improving mental health. Most of the scientifically tested apps are based on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) principles, which are considered the gold standard for the treatment of most mental health problems. Objective This review investigates standalone smartphone-based ecological momentary interventions (EMIs) built on principles derived from CBT that aim to improve mental health. Methods We searched the MEDLINE, PsycINFO, EMBASE, and PubMed databases for peer-reviewed …
Tangibot: A collaborative multiplayer game for pediatric patients
2019
[EN] Background Previous research has studied the effects of games in pediatric wards, but none of it has focused on the impact of the hospital¿s school staff on the psychosocial state of the children nor on the gameplay itself. Objectives To present the Tangibot application and evaluate its impact on the children¿s psychosocial state in the short term and the impact of the teacher on their psychosocial state, communications and coordination during the activity. Methods A study was conducted in a hospital classroom with 20 participants, who participated twice in the game: one with the teacher playing along and another without her. An observational scale was used by two evaluators in order t…
Cardiac Rehabilitees' Technology Experiences Before Remote Rehabilitation : Qualitative Study Using a Grounded Theory Approach
2019
Background: Even though technology is becoming increasingly common in rehabilitation programs, insufficient data are as yet available on rehabilitees’ perceptions and experiences. It is important to understand their abilities when using technology for remote rehabilitation. Objective: This is a qualitative study on technology experiences of persons affected by cardiovascular disease assessed before remote rehabilitation. The aim of the study was to explore rehabilitees’ experiences and attitudes toward technology before 12 months of remote rehabilitation. Methods: Qualitative interviews were conducted with 39 rehabilitees in four focus groups. The subjects were aged 34 to 77 years (average …
Overrating Classifier Performance in ROC Analysis in the Absence of a Test Set: Evidence from Simulation and Italian CARATkids Validation
2019
Background The use of receiver operating characteristic curves, or “ROC analysis,” has become quite common in biomedical research to support decisions. However, sensitivity, specificity, and misclassification rates are still often estimated using the training sample, overlooking the risk of overrating the test performance. Methods A simulation study was performed to highlight the inferential implications of splitting (or not) the dataset into training and test set. The normality assumption was made for the classifier given the disease status, and the Youden's criterion considered for the detection of the optimal cutoff. Then, an ROC analysis with sample split was applied to assess the disc…
Engagement as a Driver of Growth of Online Health Forums: Observational Study
2017
Background: The emerging research on nurturing the growth of online communities posits that it is in part attributed to network effects, wherein every increase in the volume of user-generated content increases the value of the community in the eyes of its potential new members. The recently introduced metric engagement capacity offers a means of quantitatively assessing the ability of online platform users to engage each other into generating content; meanwhile, the quantity engagement value is useful for quantifying communication-based platform use. If the claim that higher engagement leads to accelerated growth holds true for online health forums (OHFs), then engagement tracking should be…