Purpose: To analyse factors affecting the ability to use the digital asthma monitoring application Mask-Air in old-age individuals living in inland Portugal.
Patients And Methods: In this observational study, patients with medically confirmed asthma who agreed to participate were interviewed and subdivided into Non-users Group: those who could not use the application and Users Group: those who could. Sociodemographic and psychological data, comorbidities, and asthma status were compared between groups.
Rationale: It is unclear how each individual asthma symptom is associated with asthma diagnosis or control.
Objectives: To assess the performance of individual asthma symptoms in the identification of patients with asthma and their association with asthma control.
Methods: In this cross-sectional study, we assessed real-world data using the MASK-air app.
Background: In allergic rhinitis and asthma, adolescents and young adult patients are likely to differ from older patients. We compared adolescents, young adults and adults on symptoms, control levels, and medication adherence.
Methods: In a cross-sectional study (2015-2022), we assessed European users of the MASK-air mHealth app of three age groups: adolescents (13-18 years), young adults (18-26 years), and adults (>26 years).
Eight million Ukrainians have taken refuge in the European Union. Many have asthma and/or allergic rhinitis and/or urticaria, and around 100,000 may have a severe disease. Cultural and language barriers are a major obstacle to appropriate management.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiomarkers for the diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of patients with rhinitis and/or asthma are urgently needed. Although some biologic biomarkers exist in specialist care for asthma, they cannot be largely used in primary care. There are no validated biomarkers in rhinitis or allergen immunotherapy (AIT) that can be used in clinical practice.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Validated questionnaires are used to assess asthma control over the past 1-4 weeks from reporting. However, they do not adequately capture asthma control in patients with fluctuating symptoms. Using the Mobile Airways Sentinel Network for airway diseases (MASK-air) app, we developed and validated an electronic daily asthma control score (e-DASTHMA).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMASK-air , a validated mHealth app (Medical Device regulation Class IIa) has enabled large observational implementation studies in over 58,000 people with allergic rhinitis and/or asthma. It can help to address unmet patient needs in rhinitis and asthma care. MASK-air is a Good Practice of DG Santé on digitally-enabled, patient-centred care.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Allergy Clin Immunol Pract
April 2023
Digital health is an umbrella term which encompasses eHealth and benefits from areas such as advanced computer sciences. eHealth includes mHealth apps, which offer the potential to redesign aspects of healthcare delivery. The capacity of apps to collect large amounts of longitudinal, real-time, real-world data enables the progression of biomedical knowledge.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Data from mHealth apps can provide valuable information on rhinitis control and treatment patterns. However, in MASK-air®, these data have only been analyzed cross-sectionally, without considering the changes of symptoms over time. We analyzed data from MASK-air® longitudinally, clustering weeks according to reported rhinitis symptoms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose Of Review: Anaphylaxis is common in old-age adults but is insufficiently understood by physicians, and may be underdiagnosed. This review discusses the specificities of anaphylaxis in this age group and stresses the importance of adrenaline in its management.
Recent Findings: Data from the European Anaphylaxis Registry on elderly patients is a major finding.
Int Arch Allergy Immunol
November 2022
Introduction: Allergic rhinitis (AR) is a disease characterized by IgE-mediated hypersensitivity responses akin to allergic asthma. Although common in children and young adults, AR can be particularly vexing in the elderly: several studies have underlined its impact on the patient's self-perceived health-related quality of life (HR-QoL). Available literature data on AR-affected elderly patients remain sparse and often focused on specific characteristics.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Allergy Clin Immunol Pract
November 2022
Background: Several studies have suggested an impact of allergic rhinitis on academic productivity. However, large studies with real-world data (RWD) are not available.
Objective: To use RWD to assess the impact of allergic rhinitis on academic performance (measured through a visual analog scale [VAS] education and the Work Productivity and Activity Impairment Questionnaire plus Classroom Impairment Questions: Allergy Specific [WPAI+CIQ:AS] questionnaire), and to identify factors associated with the impact of allergic rhinitis on academic performance.
Drug repurposing is a major field of value-added medicine. It involves investigating and evaluating existing drugs for new therapeutic purposes that address unmet healthcare needs. Several unmet needs in allergic rhinitis could be improved by drug repurposing.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Different treatments exist for allergic rhinitis (AR), including pharmacotherapy and allergen immunotherapy (AIT), but they have not been compared using direct patient data (i.e., "real-world data").
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Evidence regarding the effectiveness of allergen immunotherapy (AIT) on allergic rhinitis has been provided mostly by randomised controlled trials, with little data from real-life studies.
Objective: To compare the reported control of allergic rhinitis symptoms in three groups of users of the MASK-air app: those receiving sublingual AIT (SLIT), those receiving subcutaneous AIT (SCIT), and those receiving no AIT.
Methods: We assessed the MASK-air data of European users with self-reported grass pollen allergy, comparing the data reported by patients receiving SLIT, SCIT and no AIT.
Background: Co-medication is common among patients with allergic rhinitis (AR), but its dimension and patterns are unknown. This is particularly relevant since AR is understood differently across European countries, as reflected by rhinitis-related search patterns in Google Trends. This study aims to assess AR co-medication and its regional patterns in Europe, using real-world data.
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