The floodlight study is a collaboration between researchers at the University of Plymouth and the pharmaceutical company F.Hoffman-L Roche Ltd(“Roche”). Roche has developed a mobile phone based app that aims to monitor symptoms in people with MS at home. This provides the opportunity of providing a clearer perspective of how symptoms vary over time. This broader picture of symptoms change would help to inform clinical management decisions such as the dose or type of disease modifying therapies or the need for additional therapy. It would also allow improved monitoring during clinical research trials.
The app has several measures including patient reported outcome measures developed by Prof Hobart’s team at the University of Plymouth. There are also tests of hand dexterity, cognition (thinking), balance and walking. The balance and walking tests use the sensors (accelerometers and gyroscopes) found in all smart phones. The floodlight study is comparing the measures obtained with the phone sensors to measures obtained using a state-of-the-art 3D motion analysis system housed within the motor control laboratory in the new Brain Research Imaging Centre (BRIC) at the University of Plymouth. These comparisons will allow us to refine and validate the phone based measures. To make this assessment more realistic we are simultaneously measuring walking with the phones placed at locations around the body that people commonly use and we are also taking measures when people are using the phones at home every day over a 2 week period.
The study involves two visits to the Brain Research Imaging Centre (BRIC). The first visit involves a clinical assessment by a neurologist, the assessment of some timed measures of hand function and walking and an explanation of how to use the phone based app over the subsequent 2 weeks. The mobile phone with the app is then loaned for a 2 week period and people undertake the phone based assessments each day. These last for about 15 minutes. We are also gathering information on people’s mobility during their everyday activities. The final visit involves comparing data gathered using the phones while walking and balancing to accurate recordings of leg and trunk movement using our 3D motion analysis system.
At the end of the 2 weeks of home based phone use people have the opportunity to discuss their views on the app, its usability and usefulness using a questionnaire as well as through an interview. This will allow us to refine the content of the app and instructions for its use to make it user-friendly and easy to use with minimal burden to people with MS.
We are aiming to assess 100 people with MS and 35 people without MS of a similar age and gender distribution. We are recruiting people from the South West region focusing on the Plymouth catchment area. We are seeing people with MS who can walk with or without an aid and we are hoping to recruit people with a wide range of symptom severity and all MS presentations such as relapsing-remitting and primary and secondary progressive types. We started data collection in February 2022 and have recruited 54 people with MS and 17 people without MS. Our estimated end date for recruitment is September 2023
Key Inclusion Criteria :
All types of MS
EDSS 0-6.5 (inclusive)
Able to walk for at least 6 minutes (can include using walking aids)
BMI <35
Able to attend 2 face to face appointments in Plymouth
Able to use phone and app (provided) for two weeks duration of study
If you are interested in this, or any other study, or have any questions you would like to ask about it, please contact our team who will be able to connect you with the relevant team:
rduh.swpmsresearch@nhs.net
