Actual condition of patients with rheumatoid arthritis should be known to attending doctors for the adequate management of the disease. For this purpose, a portable computerized disease condition memory system has been developed to record the patient's pain fluctuations and physical activity in daily life, both at home and during work.
This system is a kind of small battery-driven computer system (10×7×1.8cm, 200g) and is equipped with four button switches on the upper side and a mercury switch inside it. In practice, the pain fluctuations and the duration of morning stiffness are recorded by patient's pressing of the corresponding switches. Meanwhile the mercury switch serves as a kind of shock sensor and the physical activity of the patient can be recorded by wearing this unit all day long. The continuously recordable time is more than two weeks.
At the first study, rheumatoid activity was evaluated by comparing the data obtained by this new recording system with the Lansbury index widely used now. Actually pain fluctuations and physical activities were correlated with changes in the dosages of drugs, such as corticosteroid or anti-inflammatory agents. The result showed that the data obtained by this system became better or worse in response to the drugs dosages, even though the Lansbury index did not change.
These results indicate that minute changes in the disease condition can be followed by this system, and in this sense the effectiveness of this system in clinical application has been demonstrated.
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