Abstract
Self monitoring, personal goal-setting and coaching, education and social support are strategies to help patients with chronic conditions in their daily care. Various tools have been developed, e.g., mobile digital coaching systems connected with wearable sensors, serious games and patient web portals to personal health records, that aim to support patients with chronic conditions and their caregivers in realizing the ideal of self-management. We describe a platform that integrates these tools to support young patients in diabetes self-management through educational game playing, monitoring and motivational feedback. We describe the design of the platform referring to principles from healthcare, persuasive system design and serious game design. The virtual coach is a game guide that can also provide personalized feedback about the user’s daily care related activities which have value for making progress in the game world. User evaluations with patients under pediatric supervision revealed that the use of mobile technology in combination with web-based elements is feasible but some assumptions made about how users would connect to the platform were not satisfied in reality, resulting in less than optimal user experiences. We discuss challenges with suggestions for further development of integrated pervasive coaching and gamification platforms in medical practice.
Highlights
Self-management [1] is of key importance in the successful treatment of patients with chronic conditions, such as Type 1 diabetes (T1D), a condition in which the patient needs daily insulin treatment because their body fails to produce this hormone
After we discuss design principles and the design of the PERGAMON gamification platform, we present preliminary pilot study results obtained with experiences with the platform “in the wild”, that is, with young patients with T1D under supervision of paediatricians and diabetes nurses in a Dutch hospital
We asked participants “Do you expect that the PERGAMON platform will support you in your diabetes management?”
Summary
Self-management [1] is of key importance in the successful treatment of patients with chronic conditions, such as Type 1 diabetes (T1D), a condition in which the patient needs daily insulin treatment because their body fails to produce this hormone. In contrast to Type 2 diabetes, T1D is typically diagnosed at a young age when patients are still dependent on their parents who are responsible for managing their child’s health condition [2]. Goals for the management of T1D include achieving optimal glycemic control, avoiding acute complications, and minimizing the risk of long-term microvascular. Self-monitoring of blood glucose (BGM), either by using a blood glucose meter or using a system for continuous blood glucose monitoring [3] is one of the most important activities in managing diabetes.
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