Neuropathy is a common complication of diabetes and chemotherapy and if not diagnosed and treated early, it can lead to severe health problems like diabetic foot ulcers. Therefore, early detection, monitoring, and treatment of neuropathy is crucial to most patients. Recently, Mobile Health (mHealth) technologies have increasingly been utilized in healthcare as a novel platform for ambulatory monitoring and treatment by patients themselves.
In a recent study published by PLOS Digital Health, we present a mHealth app called the Neuropathy Tracker for ambulatory self-assessment of neuropathy. The app was designed in close collaboration with neurologists and patients to ensure both a high degree of usability and usefulness as part of the clinical assessment of neuropathy.
Figure 1 – The flow of a Vibration Test done in the Neuropathy Tracker.
The Neuropathy Tracker app was implemented as part of the CARP family of technologies and has been implemented using the Research Package.
Figure 2 – A user performing a self-assessment using the Neuropathy Tracker.
The Neuropathy Tracker was subject to a small feasibility study involving 17 patients with a varying degree of neuropathy. The study showed a statistically significant (Pearson correlation ρ = 0.86, p < 0.05) but moderate (Concordance Correlation Coefficient (ρc) = 0.69) agreement between the overall scores obtained by the self-assessment done by patients using the Neuropathy Tracker and the overall scores obtained by the Total Neuropathy Score clinical (TNSc) assessment. In terms of usability, all participants could perform the self-assessment relying solely on the instructions in the app.
In conclusion, the Neuropathy Tracker seems to be feasible for ambulatory self-assessment of neuropathy both from a clinical and patient perspective. The overall goal is to use the Neuropathy Tracker in clinical diagnosis and treatment of neuropathy as part of clinical treatment in a clinic.
More thorough clinical validation in larger studies are currently being conducted to verify these early findings. In parallel, the Neuropathy Tracker is being integrated into the CARP infrastructure to allow for large-scale deployment in different studies involving many participants.
This work was done as part of the Greater Copenhagen Health Science Partners‘ Clinical Academic Group – the BAT-CAG.
Reference
- Bardram JE, Westermann M, Makulec JG, Ballegaard M (2025) The Neuropathy Tracker—A mobile health application for ambulatory and self-administred assessment of neuropathy. PLOS Digital Health 4(2): e0000725. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pdig.0000725