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An official publication of the ACR and the ARP serving rheumatologists and rheumatology professionals

The Smartphone as Diagnostic Tool

Larry Beresford  |  Issue: March 2018  |  

The experience of pain is often driven by psycho-social issues on a deep level in the patient’s life; virtual reality can promote mindfulness and relaxation and reduce the perception of pain by absorbing and diverting the person’s attention away from the pain, Dr. Bhana explained. “If we can target nonpharmacological approaches to pain, it benefits everybody. And a lot of that technology is available today. You can get VR goggles at Amazon.com for $35 and subscribe to a VR app for $10 a month.”

For the physician, principal barriers to using technology are time, reimbursement and billing concerns.

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For more information about the tech revolution for rheumatologists, contact Dr. Bhana via email.

Larry Beresford is a freelance medical journalist in Oakland, Calif.

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References

  1. Cutolo M, Sulli A, Secchi ME, et al. Nailfold capillaroscopy is useful for the diagnosis and follow-up of autoimmune rheumatic diseases. A future tool for the analysis of microvascular heart involvement? Rheumatology (Oxford). 2006 Oct;45(Suppl 4):iv43–iv46.
  2. Sanchez BM, Lesch M, Brammer D, et al. Use of a portable thermal imaging unit as a rapid, quantitative method of evaluating inflammation and experimental arthritis. J Pharmacol Toxicol Methods. 2008 May–June;57(3):169–175.
  3. Frize M, Ogungbemile A. Estimating rheumatoid arthritis activity with infrared image analysis. Stud Health Technol Inform. 2012 Aug;180:594–598.

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