A supportive environment for the long term management of knee osteoarthritis condition

This paper describes the efforts for building a supportive and integrated environment for the long term management of knee osteoarthritis (OA) and is intended to be used by both patients and medical professionals. More specifically, medical professionals will be provided by a useful input regarding the health status of the patients as the related medical data will be properly visualized and presented. This will give a better insight of the condition and its progress, in order clinicians to carry out personalized medicine and better follow-up. On the other hand, patients will be provided by an environment that will monitor their lifestyle data (daily dietary and physical activity, pain level etc) and will warn them, if they do not manage to be compliant with the special medical guidelines. The monitoring will rely on techniques of self-life logging, enhancing patient engagement. Moreover, the platform will function as a supportive system to the patients by offering advice and assistance, allowing users to play a key role in monitoring and managing their own health. In this way, the oaCARE app was build and is described in detail in this work.