2019 Volume 65 Issue 1 Pages 58-63
In order to extend the healthy life expectancy and shorten the years lived in poor health in Japan, the early treatment and prevention of motor organ disorders are urgently required. A concept named ‘locomotive syndrome’ is defined as being restricted in one’s ability to walk or lead a normal life owing to a dysfunction in one or more of the parts of the motor organ (locomotive) system. We developed the Locomonitor app using Apple’s ResearchKit and conducted the first cross-sectional nationwide observational study to evaluate the epidemiology of locomotive syndrome. The locomotive function was evaluated using the locomotive syndrome risk tests implemented in the app. The potential benefits of the smartphone-based Locomonitor study are 1) attracting participants from a wide area and different generations within a short period, 2) helping disseminate knowledge of locomotive syndrome, 3) enabling locomotive syndrome risk tests without a measurer, 4) gathering objective and continuous activity data without any burden on the participants, and 5) providing highly personalized feedback to participants. However, uncertainty with regard to accuracy and some possible selection bias are potential limitations. We predict that smartphone-based medical studies will be conducted with increasing frequency in the future.
