Department of Biomedical and Biotechnological Sciences, Biological Tower, School of Medicine, University of Catania, Via S. Sofia 97, 95123, Catania, Italy.
IRCCS Centro Neurolesi "Bonino Pulejo", Messina, Italy.
Neurol Sci. 2024 Jan;45(1):37-45. doi: 10.1007/s10072-023-07045-8. Epub 2023 Sep 13.
A recent interesting field of application of telemedicine/e-health involved smartphone apps. Although research on mHealth began in 2014, there are still few studies using these technologies in healthy elderly and in neurodegenerative disorders. Thus, the aim of the present review was to summarize current evidence on the usability and effectiveness of the use of mHealth in older adults and patients with neurodegenerative disorders.
This review was conducted by searching for recent peer-reviewed articles published between June 1, 2010 and March 2023 using the following databases: Pubmed, Embase, Cochrane Database, and Web of Science. After duplicate removal, abstract and title screening, 25 articles were included in the full-text assessment.
Ten articles assessed the acceptance and usability, and 15 articles evaluated the efficacy of e-health in both older individuals and patients with neurodegenerative disorders. The majority of studies reported that mHealth training was well accepted by the users, and was able to stimulate cognitive abilities, such as processing speed, prospective and episodic memory, and executive functioning, making smartphones and tablets valuable tools to enhance cognitive performances. However, the studies are mainly case series, case-control, and in general small-scale studies and often without follow-up, and only a few RCTs have been published to date.
Despite the great attention paid to mHealth in recent years, the evidence in the literature on their effectiveness is scarce and not comparable. Longitudinal RCTs are needed to evaluate the efficacy of mHealth cognitive rehabilitation in the elderly and in patients with neurodegenerative disorders.
远程医疗/电子健康的一个最近的有趣应用领域涉及智能手机应用程序。虽然移动健康研究始于 2014 年，但在健康老年人和神经退行性疾病患者中使用这些技术的研究仍然很少。因此，本综述的目的是总结当前关于使用移动健康在老年人和神经退行性疾病患者中应用的可用性和有效性的证据。
本综述通过搜索 2010 年 6 月 1 日至 2023 年 3 月期间发表的最近同行评审的文章，使用以下数据库：Pubmed、Embase、Cochrane 数据库和 Web of Science。在去除重复项、摘要和标题筛选后，有 25 篇文章被纳入全文评估。
有 10 篇文章评估了接受度和可用性，15 篇文章评估了电子健康在老年人和神经退行性疾病患者中的疗效。大多数研究报告称，移动健康培训受到用户的广泛接受，并且能够刺激认知能力，如处理速度、前瞻性和情景记忆以及执行功能，使智能手机和平板电脑成为增强认知表现的有价值工具。然而，这些研究主要是病例系列、病例对照研究，通常规模较小，且没有随访，迄今为止只有少数 RCT 发表。
尽管近年来移动健康受到了极大的关注，但文献中关于其有效性的证据仍然很少且不可比。需要进行纵向 RCT 来评估移动健康认知康复在老年人和神经退行性疾病患者中的疗效。
