PRE2019 3 Group18

Group Members

Name	ID	Major	Email
Kasper de Bruijn	1333046	Applied Physics	k.j.d.bruijn@student.tue.nl
Nick Jansen	1260731	Computer Science and Engineering	n.j.jansen@student.tue.nl
Davide Fabbro	1255401	Electrical Engineering	d.h.fabbro@student.tue.nl
Kamil Musiał	1283073	Computer Science and Engineering	k.musial@student.tue.nl
Milan Koumans	1256041	Electrical Engineering	m.koumans@student.tue.nl

Planning

Meetings held on Mondays and Thursdays. Tasks specified in the table have to be completed before the given meeting.
KdB = Kasper, N = Nick, D = Davide, KM = Kamil, M = Milan

Week	Monday (morning)	Thursday (afternoon)
1	--	--
2	ALL: Form a group, decide on the subject	KdB: Making questionaire diabetics (to discuss/improve during the meeting), plan visit to diabetes centre N: find and gather info about similar projects on the wiki, gather ideas about app functionality KM: Create wiki template, research state-of-the-art diabetes technologies D: Research diabetes and needs of diabetics (IO for App) M: gather ideas about app functionality
3	KdB: Write down the users part of the wiki, prepare for the meeting with diabetes center N: List on the wiki all gathered requirements, functionalities, ideas what the app does; Help with app development plan KM: Create app development plan, start setting up the project and its repository D: write down the milestones and deliverables section on the wiki M: write down the problem statement on the wiki
4
5
6
7
8
9

Subject

Problem statement

WHO, short for World Health Organization, published an article on 30 October 2018 named ‘Diabetes’ (REF1). The article stated some key facts about diabetes. For example, the number of people with diabetes changed from 108 million to 422 million in 34 years. This is a rather concerning number, especially with the fact that diabetes can be treated (note: not cured!) and its effects can be delayed or even avoided with the help of a medication, a healthy lifestyle; a healthy diet with good physical activity and with the help of proper, professional screening of the patient. Present-day these challenges can be tackled properly, but the USE-aspect still has a lot of improvements to undergo. Later in this section we will look more in depth into the USE-aspect of problems with current technology.

Diabetes is a well-known disease, but there is still a lot of ignorance about the disease. Diabetes is a disease which occurs when the amount of glucose in your blood is too high. Having too much glucose in your blood for a long period of time can cause health problems. Diabetes is a general name for the diseases, it defines severel types of diabetes. Although there is no cure for diabetes (yet), a person can manage their diabetes to stay healthy and will be safe from its fatal consequences.

A lot of people undergo constraints because of the disease and with the help of technology products will make lives easier for diabetes patients. Diabetes patients first of all need to take medicine, depending on their type of diabetes (REF2). Also, they have to follow a personal diet matching with their diabetes type (REF2). This is a very important step for the treatment of diabetes and it requires a lot of effort from the patient. The diet has to be very specific, healthy and available to the patient. Problems with a good diet for a patient could be that a person is allergic to certain food, the diet does not provide a complete diet with all necessary vitamins or the food itself is too expensive for the person or even not available to the patient in his current location. These are all some technical issues that can arise when focusing on a good diet. But also the USE-aspect of technology to help patients is a big part. The app has to be user friendly and clear for people to use it concisely and correctly. Wrong data or mere laziness due to the app being hard to understand is disadvantageous and could potentially be fatal to patients. That is why this is an important problem which needs to be solved.

REF1 :

REF2:

Objectives

- Researching the state-of-the-art on diabetes

- Researching the needs of a diabetic patient

- Creating an app to assist these people with their diet

Users

- People who have diabetes and could use assistance with their diet

The application we aim to develop has a clear group of users; diabetic patients. Approximately 1,2 million Dutch people have diabetes. There are two types of diabetic patients, called type 1 and type 2. About 90% of all diabetic patients are type 2 diabetics. For now, our focus is on the patients of type 1 diabetes, which is the more severe form. These people need a specific diet and have to regulate their blood sugar level by administering insulin. These patients will probably benefit from a wellmade application that can support them with their diet and blood sugar regulation. We will try to find out how these people can be best supported by an application, and what their needs are going to be. An interview with the patient-communication advisor of Diabeter Eindhoven, and diabetic patient type 1 himself, Wietske Wits, is planned for monday 13-02-2020. He will elaborate on the user needs he finds important.

Requirement of the users

Our user requirements mostly depend on the functionalities our patient would need or want as a functionality of the app. The app has to make sure that the patient will follow a good diet (and that the patient will take his medicine), so the patient will have a (sort of) grocery list with the number of vegetables and other stuff the patient has to get. To help the patient to stick to this diet it will give many different examples of good meals to cook, but also to give the patient enough freedom to change some ingredients of those meals, like take other vegetables or choose chicken instead of pork. It should also be possible to choose a good meal from those example meals with a certain budget, so people do not have a lot of money, so it is very important to consider this as well. The app should also need the data of the measurement of the amount of glucose in the blood, based on these data the app can change the diet or call a doctor. It is not possible to measure the blood 24/7, so either a computer must simulate a person based on some measurements or the patient must measure his blood three or more times a day (the app can help remind this). This is very important because wrong data or forgetfulness of taking those measurements could lead to fatal problems.

State-of-the-art

Diabetes applications

The market of diabetes applications on smartphones has grown immensely over the past years. Users can choose between many options, no matter which operating system is running on their phone. Presented research has focused on Android users, since our prototype will also be developed for that platform. The list below consists of some of the most popular applications. They were downloaded and tested, so that we would obtain some first-hand experience. At the end there is a paragraph summing up the general findings.

Calorie Counter - MyNetDiary, Food Diary Tracker

Made not specifically for diabetic people, but for anyone who wants to have better control over their diet. Biggest advantage is the very big database of foods, with the possibility of updates from users. Includes a barcode scanner that allows to scan the food package for easy calorie and nutrients entry.

The proposed (by the creators) way to use the application is as follows:

• Set a weight goal
• Enter a target date ( vacation, wedding, or reunion )
• Get a calculated Calorie Plan
• Log daily meals and exercise
• Follow daily Calorie Budget
• Reach your goal

The application is extensive and sophisticated. However, it lacks support for functionalities specifically in need by people with diabetes, such as measuring/logging sugar levels. Some of those features are only unlocked if the user buys the full version of the application. A subscription costs $9 USD monthly. Thus rendering this option attractive for our target user only if they are willing to pay.

mySugr - Diabetes App & Blood Sugar Tracker

link to Google Play

This application's target users are indeed people who struggle with diabetes. It was reported to be amongst the most used by the participants of this link study. It provides a vast range of activities. However, to fully benefit from the functionalities it is required to invest in the full version of the application. Some of the features are blocked or limited in the free version, for example only 5 food scan per day are allowed. This application supports

• Blood sugar tracking
• Meal logging
• Insulin dosage calculation

BG Monitor Diabetes

link to Google Play

Functionalities available in the pro version (costs $4.99):

Supports reminders to check your blood or give insulin

Automatically calculates insulin dosages and total carbohydrates from multiple food servings

Creates reports and can email them to healthcare provider within app

Stores data on external could service for easy recovery

Health2Sync - Diabetes Care

link to Google Play

Support logging and tracking of various inputs, such as blood sugar, blood pressure, weight, medication, diet, exercise, and mood.

Distinctive feature of the application is the possibility of inviting 'partners' that have oversight over the gathered statistics and can provide encouragements.

Diabetes Connect

link to Google Play

Simple interface, easy to use and intuitive to navigate. Tracking weight, blood sugar, meals, insulin injections, medication. Supports synchronization over multiple devices.

Can enter multiple data at once: blood glucose, insulin, and carbohydrates

Glucool Diabetes

link to Google Play

Highly customizable: custom insulin, medication types, and exercise types

Can enter multiple data at once: blood glucose, insulin, and carbohydrates

Premium version costs 7.99$, unlocks all features such as creating graphs

The market of applications for diabetes users is very well developed. Users have a choice between many options that enable them to track every aspect of their illness. The basic options for every app include logging of information such as blood sugar level, insulin, meals, medication and activities. Some of them provide the option to generate graphs about the data. Most of the applications are not free, if the user want to make us of all the features they have to pay. The price range varies from 3$ one time purchase to 10$ monthly subscription plans.

Usage of applications by people with diabetes

Nowadays smartphones are considered widely available and most people in highly developed countries make use of them. The total number of smartphones users worldwide was estimated to be 2.90 billion in 2018 . The market for smartphone applications dedicated for people struggling with diabetes has also grown immensely. Only from 2011 to 2014 the amount of applications has risen from 80 to an astounding amount of over 1000 . In 2018 this number was already around 5000(!), 3600 updated regurarly However, according to the same research of the market, only 1.2% of the target group (people struggling with diabetes) were using an app in 2011. It was predicted that this number will increase to 7.8% in 2018. We could not find any recent research that would confirm this claim. This number of users also raises some suspicions from our side, since not all people have access to smartphones and not all people are skilled enough to use them. We suspect that taking these things into account the real percentage might be considerably higher. The market is full of apps, but that does not mean that

• people are using these apps in the first place
• apps help improve their self-care

Research about these two matters is presented below.
For our project it is important to establish whether there is a relation between using diabetes apps and quality of health. A study published in March 2019 was conducted to answer this question. From November 2017 to March 2018 an online survey was conducted. "One thousand fifty two respondents with type 1 and 630 respondents with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) entered the survey. More than half, 549 (52.2%), and one third, 210 (33.3%), of respondents with type 1 and 2 DM, respectively, reported using diabetes apps for self-management. To measure how participants took care of themselves a questionnaire from the Summary of Diabetes Self-care Activities was used. It included positions such as “general diet”, “specific diet”, “exercise”, “blood glucose testing" and “smoking”. Using diabetes apps for self-management was positively associated with higher self-care behaviour in both types of diabetes. These findings support our motivation for the project - we want to help people with diabetes and by improving smartphone applications we can make a difference.

Milestones

Week 1

• Form a group

Week 2

• Choose a subject, make it concrete.
• Update the wiki page with all the basic information (problem statement, objectives, users, deliverables, milestones)
• Prepare a meeting with a person from the diabetes centre
• Make a separate plan of the application development process

Week 8

Finish writing our wiki and give the presentation of our project

Logbook

Week 1

Missed because of problems with group forming

Name	Student number	Activities (hours)	Total time spent
Kasper de Bruijn	1333046	...	0
Nick Jansen	1260731	...	0
Davide Fabbro	1255401	...	0
Kamil Musiał	1283073	...	0
Milan Koumans	1256041	...	0

Week 2

Name	Student number	Activities (hours)	Total time spent
Kasper de Bruijn	1333046	user research(2)	2
Nick Jansen	1260731	Working on wiki(1)	1
Davide Fabbro	1255401	...	0
Kamil Musiał	1283073	...	0
Milan Koumans	1256041	...	0

Week 3

Name	Student number	Activities (hours)	Total time spent
Kasper de Bruijn	1333046	...	0
Nick Jansen	1260731	...	0
Davide Fabbro	1255401	...	0
Kamil Musiał	1283073	...	0
Milan Koumans	1256041	...	0

Week 4

Name	Student number	Activities (hours)	Total time spent
Kasper de Bruijn	1333046	...	0
Nick Jansen	1260731	...	0
Davide Fabbro	1255401	...	0
Kamil Musiał	1283073	...	0
Milan Koumans	1256041	...	0

Week 5

Name	Student number	Activities (hours)	Total time spent
Kasper de Bruijn	1333046	...	0
Nick Jansen	1260731	...	0
Davide Fabbro	1255401	...	0
Kamil Musiał	1283073	...	0
Milan Koumans	1256041	...	0

Week 6

Name	Student number	Activities (hours)	Total time spent
Kasper de Bruijn	1333046	...	0
Nick Jansen	1260731	...	0
Davide Fabbro	1255401	...	0
Kamil Musiał	1283073	...	0
Milan Koumans	1256041	...	0

Week 7

Name	Student number	Activities (hours)	Total time spent
Kasper de Bruijn	1333046	...	0
Nick Jansen	1260731	...	0
Davide Fabbro	1255401	...	0
Kamil Musiał	1283073	...	0
Milan Koumans	1256041	...	0

Week 8

Name	Student number	Activities (hours)	Total time spent
Kasper de Bruijn	1333046	...	0
Nick Jansen	1260731	...	0
Davide Fabbro	1255401	...	0
Kamil Musiał	1283073	...	0
Milan Koumans	1256041	...	0

Week 9?

Name	Student number	Activities (hours)	Total time spent
Kasper de Bruijn	1333046	...	0
Nick Jansen	1260731	...	0
Davide Fabbro	1255401	...	0
Kamil Musiał	1283073	...	0
Milan Koumans	1256041	...	0

Minutes

Minutes