Technologies for Monitoring Lifestyle Habits Related to Brain Health: A Systematic Review

• Main Authors: Diego Moreno-Blanco, Javier Solana-Sánchez, Patricia Sánchez-González, Ignacio Oropesa, César Cáceres, Gabriele Cattaneo, Josep M. Tormos-Muñoz, David Bartrés-Faz, Álvaro Pascual-Leone, Enrique J. Gómez
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2019-09-01
• Series: Sensors
• Subjects: adaptive systems; biomedical engineering; brain health; brain modeling; modeling; monitoring; review; remote monitoring; sensor systems; telemedicine
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/19/19/4183

Brain health refers to the preservation of brain integrity and function optimized for an individual’s biological age. Several studies have demonstrated that our lifestyles habits impact our brain health and our cognitive and mental wellbeing. Monitoring such lifestyles is thus critical and mobile technologies are essential to enable such a goal. Three databases were selected to carry out the search. Then, a PRISMA and PICOTS based criteria for a more detailed review on the basis of monitoring lifestyle aspects were used to filter the publications. We identified 133 publications after removing duplicates. Fifteen were finally selected from our criteria. Many studies still use questionnaires as the only tool for monitoring and do not apply advanced analytic or AI approaches to fine-tune results. We anticipate a transformative boom in the near future developing and implementing solutions that are able to integrate, in a flexible and adaptable way, data from technologies and devices that users might already use. This will enable continuous monitoring of objective data to guide the personalized definition of lifestyle goals and data-driven coaching to offer the necessary support to ensure adherence and satisfaction.