The advances in the field of mobile communication technology can be leveraged to not only create awareness but also motivate patients, especially those in the rural areas, to keep lifestyle disorders at bay, opined Geetha Prasadini, Additional Director and State Programme Officer of National Programme for Prevention and Control of Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular Disease and Stroke (NPCDCS), Andhra Pradesh.
She launched m-Power Heart Project, a research project to test the effectiveness of an m-health technology-enabled trained nurse-led intervention, in presence of D. Prabhakaran, vice-president, policy and research, Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), and M. Bhaskara Rao, co-investigator of the project, at a programme here on Friday.
Addressing the delegates, Dr. Geetha said that lifestyle diseases were being seen at an early age now-a-days. These Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) were now seen in the lower strata of society also.
Smart phones have literally invaded not only middle class but also homes of the poor, both in urban and rural areas, and the mobile health app brought out by PHFI could be gainfully employed to alert the patients to go for check-ups and also to use drugs from time-to-time.
Govt. initiatives
She briefed about various initiatives launched by the State government like Swastha Vaidya Vahini and Chandranna Sanchara Chikitsa programmes. Under the guidelines of the Government of India every patient, above 30 years of age, should be screened for lifestyle diseases, she added.
Dr. Prabhakaran said that the burden of cardio vascular diseases (CVDs) was high in India. Hypertension was the leading risk factors for CVDs but its control rate was very low. He felt that training Community Health Workers (CHWs) and nurse care coordinators to handle m-health technology would go a long way in the education and treatment of patients.
Quoting figures from a community-based survey conducted by PHFI in Visakhapatnam district, Dr. Bhaskara Rao said that the prevalence of hypertension was high both in urban (37.5 per cent) and rural (22.6 per cent) and attributed it to unhealthy diet, lack of physical activity, smoking, alcohol and stress.
PHFI Project Manager Nikhil SV outlined the features of the m-Power project and said that the user-friendly app could be accessed by patient both online and offline.
District Coordinator of Hospital Services BK Naik spoke.
District Medical and Health Officer J. Sarojini was present.
