This App Can Help Track Multiple Sclerosis

While many popular apps include games or social media platforms, this one can help patients with multiple sclerosis track their progression with ease.

FLOODLIGHT

Roche is a pharmaceutical and healthcare organization based in Basel, Switzerland. Their tagline is "doing now what patients need next," and they have proven that to be the case with their recent announcement of FLOODLIGHT, a clinical trial program aimed at incorporating smartphones, and even smartwatches, into treatment by offering an easier route for healthcare providers to assist patients in need.

While FLOODLIGHT might not seem as fun as other apps, it does have some serious innovation behind it and is likely to totally revamp how many look at certain aspects of their treatment. Roche specifically set out to design a way for sensor-based outcomes to be examined by offering passive monitoring and neurological tests. When brainstorming how this was possible, they came up with the app.

The app will be continuously collecting a "stream of precise, real-world" information relating to how MS is progressing in patients. After this information has been collected, machine learning and algorithms designed by Roche are able to dissect the data to make it more recognizable and comprehensive.

Clinical trial

Roche conducted a clinical trial to see how patients would cooperate with this new technology, and what areas were the strongest or needed to be improved upon.

The summary of the clinical trial was described as:

"This prospective pilot study will assess the feasibility of remote participant monitoring using digital technology in participants with MS and healthy controls. At the enrollment visit, the participants as well as the healthy controls will be provided with a remote patient monitoring solution which includes preconfigured smartphone and smartwatch. The configured smartphone and smartwatch pair will contain application software that prompts the user to perform various assessments, referred to as active tests and passive monitoring. Active tests will include Hand Motor Function Test (HMFT), gait test, static balance test, electronic version of the Symbol Digit Modalities Test (eSDMT), Mood Scale Question (MSQ), MS Impact Scale (29-item scale) (MSIS-29) questionnaire, MS Symptom Tracking (MSST). Passive monitoring will be done to collect metrics on gait and mobility throughout the daily life of participants in a continuous and unobtrusive manner."

The clinical trial enrolled 120 patients between 18 and 55 years old. Each participant needed a confirmed diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, and to have an Expanded Disability Status of 0.0 to 5.5 on the scale. Weights were required to be between 45 and 110 kilograms. Certain healthy patients were also eligible to be involved.

Those with MS who were severely ill or unstable were ineligible to participate in the clinical trial, as were those who had altered their regiment of Disease Modifying Therapy, or DMT, within three months before attempting to enroll in the study. All who were either lactating, pregnant, or planning on becoming pregnant throughout the period of the clinical trial were also considered ineligible to participate.

The participants were required to perform active tests ranging from daily to bi-weekly, and passive monitoring daily for over 24 weeks. They were required to both wear a smartwatch and carry a smartphone at all times, preferably in a belt bag or pocket throughout the day. This was important to allow the smartphone to pick up on every aspect of daily routine.

Read on to learn more about FLOODLIGHT and the results of testing.