Effectiveness of Mobile Technology in Managing Fatigue: Balert App.

Ricardo De La Vega,Álvaro Calvo-Rodríguez,Cristian Jara,Miguel Chervellino,Eduardo Villamil-Cabello,Héctor Anabalón

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.704955

Abstract

The performance of professional tasks with a high cognitive, emotional, and even physiological demand, can cause a state of mental fatigue, which implies attentional alterations, greater errors in the tasks performed and a decrease in personal and work productivity caused by a deterioration of the cognitive control processes. The present study presents a mobile phone application named BAlert that allows monitoring and controlling the body's fatigue processes based on the scores obtained in the Stroop effect and the heart rate variability. A pilot study has been carried out with a sample of 63 adults who have used the application a total of 942 times. The results allow us to classify the subjects, by logistic regression analysis, in their fatigue levels in 74% of the occasions. These results highlight the importance of this mobile application to control work fatigue processes in different possible scenarios (military, health, sports, business, etc.).

Highlights

Fatigue, either central or peripheral, has become one of the most important research topics throughout decades (de la Vega et al, 2021)
It is important to assess the impact of mental fatigue on decision-making skills because it is well-known in the literature that decreases cognitive performance resulting in a negative impact during
0.303 of successive differences; BMI = body mass index; Amo = mode amplitude—% intervals corresponding to Mode; VR = variational range—difference between min and max r-r intervals; Mo = mode—most frequent R-R interval value

Summary

Introduction

Either central or peripheral, has become one of the most important research topics throughout decades (de la Vega et al, 2021). One of the main and most studied areas involving fatigue is physical activity and sports performance (Rampinini et al, 2008) Those physically fatiguing activities, such as team sports, demand cognitive efforts, as it requires sustained attention to make accurate and quick decisions sustained by processing information from a changing environment (Walsh, 2014). According to these demands, sports may produce mental fatigue (understood as a psychobiological state characterized by tiredness and lack of energy produced by demanding and sustained periods of cognitive activity (Marcora et al, 2009; Smith et al, 2016). It is important to assess the impact of mental fatigue on decision-making skills because it is well-known in the literature that decreases cognitive performance resulting in a negative impact during

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