A woman brought her asthmatic son into pediatrician Sam Pejham’s Pleasanton, California, office last July because he was always tired, wasn’t sleeping, and was gaining weight. Though it was the first time that Pejham had seen the patient, he knew the boy’s asthma wasn’t under control the moment he saw the display on the mother’s smartphone.
Pejham, a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, was looking at a line graph of a week’s worth of peak-flow data, a simple measure of lung function, using an iPhone app he had developed called AsthmaMD. Patients measure their peak flow by blowing into a separate device, then enter that data manually on the screen of their iPhone, where the data are stored and displayed graphically. Though the boy hadn’t complained of breathing problems, the graph clearly showed that his lung capacity was impaired. So Pejham prescribed a twice-daily dose of an anti-inflammatory drug in addition to the inhaler he was already using.
To read the full, original article click on this link: New Tech Boosts Science | The Scientist
