SMART2

Project Dates: From January 2008 to December 2011

Staff: Prof. Peter Wright

Sponsors: EPSRC

Chronic health conditions are those that a person has over an extended period of time, or for life. Current medical thinking encourages health professionals to work in partnership with people with long term conditions, so that the individual is in control of their treatment and care plan and what happens as a result.

This project will look at how technologies can be used to help individuals and their families manage the consequences of long term conditions and maintain quality of life, supported by professionals. In the UK self-management is central to the Government's long term conditions agenda. The research we propose extends existing work by researching some fundamental issues surrounding self-management. These include:

How can information on changes in chronic conditions be collated and fed back to users in a meaningful and usable way to help them understand their conditions?

How can information, remote from a therapist, be presented to promote health behaviour change?

How can a personalised self management system allow people to adjust life goals to accommodate and aid acceptance of their condition?

The project will focus upon three conditions: stroke, chronic pain and heart failure. The ultimate aim is to produce a 'toolkit' of software and sensors to help people assess how best to manage their condition in conjunction with input from therapists. In the final year of the project (2011) we will be deploying the SMART2 system in people's homes in and around Sheffield, in an extended field trial.

Collaborators: Prof. Sue Mawson and Tricia Ware (Sheffield Hallam University)