Diabetes management in OLDES project.

EU project OLDES (Older People's e-services at home) develops easy to use and low cost ICT platform in order to offer a better quality of life to elderly people directly in their homes through innovative systems of tele-accompany, tele-assistance and tele-medicine. The elderly are able to access the services and send relevant medical data from their home by being connected to the central server via a low cost PC which is based on Negroponte paradigm. The OLDES platform interface uses television screens controlled through a remote control customized for the elderly. The feasibility of OLDES project is evaluated by the pilot study concentrating on compensation of diabetic patients. Compensation of diabetes is achieved by monitoring glucose glycemia level, blood pressure and weight. Moreover, the patient feeds into OLDES system daily consumption of food using interactive food scales and obtains advice if necessary.

OLDES: new solution for long-term diabetes compensation management.

EU project OLDES (Older People's e-services at home) aims at developing a very low cost and easy to use entertainment and health care platform designed to ease the life of older people in their homes. The platform is based on a PC corresponding to Negroponte's paradigm of a 100 $ device. OLDES combines user entertainment services (through easy-to-access thematic interactive channels and special interest forums supported by animators) and health care facilities. The pilot case study of diabetes type II compensation under the OLDES framework is presented. Apart from measurement of continuous glucose, blood pressure and weight, the user feeds into OLDES system food daily consumption using interactive food scales via user friendly software interface designed by user-centered design paradigm and obtains advice if necessary.

Professional competence and computer literacy in e-age, focus on healthcare.

OBJECTIVES: The healthcare sector is facing an enormous acceleration due to the emergence of new knowledge, drugs, devices and diseases. Professional competence, continuing education, service excellence and patient benefits can be facilitated by the developments in information and computer technology--computer literacy is becoming imperative for all who are involved in healthcare delivery. The paper attempts to identify solutions that can aid the process of ICT uptake for full benefit of patients and healthcare professionals. METHODS: With the support of published literature, the article considers the importance of ICT skills in general and in healthcare and presents some advantages of generic vendor-independent methods of ICT certification. RESULTS: Discussed are the preliminary results of the United Kingdom's National Health Service information technology reform which addresses the need for intensified use of ICT and applies the ECDL concept. CONCLUSIONS: It is useful to complement the introduction of computer literacy as a qualification concept by a standardized accreditation of ICT skills. Solid level of computer literacy creates a reliable and efficient background for everyday activities of healthcare professionals, enables the application of further domain-specific training modules and prepares suitable environments for the introduction and acceptance of new technologies such as electronic health records and electronic transfer of prescriptions by positively transforming the attitudes of users towards them.

Behavioral and neuroendocrine changes during mental stress and repeated treatment with antidepressants in healthy men.

Excessive stress loadings in daily life are believed to play a role in the development of affective disorders. Our recent finding of enhanced neuroendocrine activation during stress of hypoglycemia after repeated antidepressant treatment in healthy men supports the hypothesis that the clinical effects of antidepressant treatment may be partly due to the adjustment of the stress response, which was reported to be blunted in depressive patients. The present double-blind placebo-controlled study investigated the effects of 6 days of treatment with the antidepressants citalopram or tianeptine on neuroendocrine activation during mental stress. Blood pressure, heart rate, and salivary cortisol values were measured. The stress procedure, lasting 17 min, consisted of a short intelligence test followed by the Stroop word-color interference test. Citalopram treatment was associated with a significant enhancement of stress-related increase in systolic and diastolic blood pressure. No differences were observed in the heart rates and salivary cortisol. Comparisons based on cluster analysis revealed that subjects with poor performance in the Stroop test displayed a significantly lower rise of systolic and diastolic blood pressure values after the stress procedure and lower prestress cortisol levels in saliva when compared to the good performing subjects. Our findings show that antidepressant treatment can enhance the neuroendocrine response also during mental stress, and suggest that mental performance during stress is related to the pattern of cardiovascular and adrenocortical activation.