Designing BENECA m-Health APP, A Mobile Health Application to Monitor Diet and Physical Activity in Cancer Survivors

Abstract

This is the abstract of a proposed mobile health application for assessing and monitoring healthy lifestyles (in terms of diet and physical activity levels) in cancer survivors, to be fully exposed at the IWANN 2017. The main goal of this mobile health application is to help cancer patients with energy imbalance, which can increase the risk of recurrence and other associated problems, such as metabolic syndrome and even death, to adhere to the international healthy recommendations in terms of diet and physical activity. The system, called BENECA m-Health app, is still in development, and will be a reliable instrument to assess physical activity and diet in cancer survivors, offering them a real-time energy balance feedback and attempting to overcome specific identified barriers to facilitate the inclusion of exercise and healthy diet into supportive care programs for cancer survivors. This mobile application has been designed to address the new needs for support of breast cancer survivors, reflecting the emerging need to merge new, low cost treatment options. This m-Health System could be a promising approach for dietary and physical assessment, as well as for intervention programs, which can be used whenever and wherever patients want.