Search

Inhaled controller medications are the cornerstone of asthma treatment and adherence is of critical importance to achieve good clinical results. However, suboptimum adherence has been the rule rather than the exception in patients with asthma. Two of the key challenges to change this scenario are: 1) development of easy-to-disseminate objective measures of inhaled drugs adherence, and 2) the promotion of behavior changes within the patients' routine daily-life. The knowledge that gaining and maintaining a person's attention is the first step in promoting behavior change and that smartphones and virtual community gaming can have a relevant role in enhancing motivation led to the concept of a mobile app. Inspirers is an attempt to transform the process of adherence to treatment into a positive experience through gamification and social interaction, while allowing for ubiquitous verified monitoring of treatment adherence. The main purpose of this work is to present the Inspirers features, development phases and forthcoming developments. We first describe the current version of Inspirers focusing on two major features: innovative inhaler usage detection based on imaging processing and the gamification approach based on social/peer support. Then we present the highly iterative development process implemented, which incorporated input/feedback from patients and physicians throughout. Finally, we discuss the forthcoming developments, mainly the integration of a feature related to symptoms monitoring; the generalization of the inhaler usage detection tool, now working with one type of inhaler, to other inhalers and oral treatments; and the implementation of feasibility and validation studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]