London: If you are a cardiac patient and want to manage your do’s and don’ts then here is a novel e-health tool ‘OPTILOGG’ in the form of a pre-programmed tablet device that can help heart failure patients to manage their disease including drug dosages.
According to research done by Euro Heart Care in 2017 in Jonkoping, Sweden. A tool called OPTILOGG provides heart failure education, and helps patients to monitor their weight and indicates when they should contact the clinic.
Heart failure is a serious condition in which the heart does not pump blood around the body causing fatigue. Blood backs up waiting to enter the heart, leading to fluid accumulation in the legs and abdomen and fluid in the lungs (congestion).
Patients with heart failure are prescribed diuretics which act on the kidneys to produce more urine, thereby reducing fluid retention and congestion. Patients are advised to monitor their weight, as a rapid loss could be a sign that the diuretic dose is too high while a sudden gain could indicate fluid retention.
OPTILOGG is a pre-programmed tablet attached to a weighing scale that provides heart failure education, registers body weight and symptoms.
If the tool detects heart failure deterioration, the patient is instructed to increase the dose of diuretics. If weight gain is above a pre-determined range patients should contact the heart failure clinic. Patients can use OPTILOGG as required without pushing any buttons and it takes less than 30 seconds a day, the researchers said.
As per the researcher Liljeroos “Providing education to increase self-care is often a challenge in primary care due to lack of experience about heart failure and time.
The researchers found that 94 per cent of patients used OPTILOGG as intended. Nurses reported that the introduction of the tool did not increase their workload.
