Ambulatory Electrodermal Activity (EDA) Measurements in Long COVID Rehabilitation: The patients’ experience
Lager, Erika (2024)
2024
Bioteknologian ja biolääketieteen tekniikan maisteriohjelma - Master's Programme in Biotechnology and Biomedical Engineering
Lääketieteen ja terveysteknologian tiedekunta - Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology
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Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2024-05-20
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202405145879
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202405145879
Tiivistelmä
Background and aims: Long COVID, the post-viral syndrome of acute coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) infection, is feared to cause a subsequent pandemic to the COVID-19 pandemic that started in 2019. The disease is hard to identify and diagnose due to its lack of definition and massive range of symptoms connected to it, many being related to the autonomic nervous system (ANS). There is also still no cure to the disease itself, but only strategies for energy management, such as the pacing method. Different measurement tools have been found helpful to manage symptom exacerbation.
Electrodermal activity (EDA) measurement is a well-known method to assess ANS activation. With new technology, Nuanic Oy (formerly Moodmetric Oy) provides an ambulatory solution to long-term EDA measurement with their smart ring. This ring’s helpfulness for patient recovery improvement is assessed in this study.
Methods: Long COVID patients treated in the Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa (HUS) Long COVID Clinique were recruited to the HUS-Moodmetric EDA study. 23 patients wore a Moodmetric smart ring for a period of two weeks while keeping a diary of their symptoms, sleep and activity as well as answering a questionnaire of their experiences at the end. These answers were analyzed with the diary markings to assess ring contentment both generally and in relation to symptoms, sleep, activity, age, and gender. Statistical significance was also inspected for every analysis.
Results: Ambulatory EDA measurement was found overall helpful for long COVID recovery improvement. Differences in experienced abilities of data utilization for recovery could not be explained with age, gender, the amount of sleep, or the frequency of physical exertion or relaxation exercises. Also, the frequency of a specific symptom did not explain different data utilization abilities except for temperature and brain fog, whose high frequencies seemed to worsen patients’ experienced benefits.
Less symptoms referred to better contentment level on data utilization for recovery improvement. Also, the ability to utilize the EDA data for recovery improvement correlated positively with the experienced accuracy of the data as well as with the experienced data unambiguity.
Conclusion: The study demonstrated that the EDA ring seemed overall to be experienced as a suitable and safe tool for the assessment of ANS reactions, aiding in the pacing method and in improving rehabilitation for long COVID patients. As so few variables affected the data utilization abilities, the ring is found to be a suitable tool for people regardless of age, gender, sleep or activity levels. It is also suitable for patients regardless of their symptoms, with given conditions.
Electrodermal activity (EDA) measurement is a well-known method to assess ANS activation. With new technology, Nuanic Oy (formerly Moodmetric Oy) provides an ambulatory solution to long-term EDA measurement with their smart ring. This ring’s helpfulness for patient recovery improvement is assessed in this study.
Methods: Long COVID patients treated in the Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa (HUS) Long COVID Clinique were recruited to the HUS-Moodmetric EDA study. 23 patients wore a Moodmetric smart ring for a period of two weeks while keeping a diary of their symptoms, sleep and activity as well as answering a questionnaire of their experiences at the end. These answers were analyzed with the diary markings to assess ring contentment both generally and in relation to symptoms, sleep, activity, age, and gender. Statistical significance was also inspected for every analysis.
Results: Ambulatory EDA measurement was found overall helpful for long COVID recovery improvement. Differences in experienced abilities of data utilization for recovery could not be explained with age, gender, the amount of sleep, or the frequency of physical exertion or relaxation exercises. Also, the frequency of a specific symptom did not explain different data utilization abilities except for temperature and brain fog, whose high frequencies seemed to worsen patients’ experienced benefits.
Less symptoms referred to better contentment level on data utilization for recovery improvement. Also, the ability to utilize the EDA data for recovery improvement correlated positively with the experienced accuracy of the data as well as with the experienced data unambiguity.
Conclusion: The study demonstrated that the EDA ring seemed overall to be experienced as a suitable and safe tool for the assessment of ANS reactions, aiding in the pacing method and in improving rehabilitation for long COVID patients. As so few variables affected the data utilization abilities, the ring is found to be a suitable tool for people regardless of age, gender, sleep or activity levels. It is also suitable for patients regardless of their symptoms, with given conditions.