Text messaging is rapidly shaping up to offer a solution
for just about everything, and it seems every time we
look, there is a new, specific application of texting
to improve our lives. One exciting use of SMS to develop
in recent years promises to help those diagnosed with
or at risk of prostate cancer.
While specific, this cause is a relevant and important
one; around one in six American males are diagnosed
with prostate cancer at some point in their lifetimes,
and prostate cancer is responsible for the second highest
number of cancer-related deaths in American males, behind
lung cancer. While a large proportion of those diagnosed
with prostate cancer survive, a diagnosis certainly
requires a great deal of physical care and emotional
support.
Text messaging can help provide this support, and that's
exactly what Prost8Care aims to do. Prost8Care, a program
created by Mobile Commons, Sanofi US, and the Prostate
Cancer Foundation (PCF), was designed to help patients
of advanced prostate cancer understand their disease
and the process associated with it. It is a one-way
text message subscription service with content designed
by oncologists and oncology nurses working with PCF.
Patients who subscribe to text messages through the
service receive texts for up to twelve weeks that are
timed to their treatment cycle. The texts are designed
to offer patients information about their treatment,
increase the involvement of the patient in their own
care, and provide encouragement and support as they
undergo chemotherapy.
In an era where mobile phones are ubiquitous and text
messaging is one of the most reliable forms of communication,
Prost8Care stands as a promising way to reach and get
through to patients, who are realistically more likely
to read and benefit from text messages than from more
traditional modes of education and outreach. And with
SMS being used more and more to bolster health initiatives,
usually with very positive results and responses, this
service is a promising innovation.
Text messaging is also being introduced to help increase
rates of prostate cancer screening, to help those afflicted
with the disease detect it earlier and therefore seek
treatment earlier and increase rates of remission. A
project supported by the National Center for Advancing
Translational Sciences of the National Institutes of
Health aims to develop a two-way text-messaging subscription
service that is expected to increase compliance with
suggested screenings for prostate cancer. The service
would remind patients at appropriate times to schedule
and attend routine screenings for prostate cancer, and
would encourage patients to reply to text messages with
updates.
The screening compliance program remains a work in
progress, and is intended to be tested ultimately for
its effect on compliance in both making and keeping
screening appointments, as well as its efficacy as a
data collection tool as measured by how often participants
share updates via text.
The union between texting and oncology has only begun
to form in relatively recent years, but its beginnings
grow more and more promising as text messaging is further
normalized and put to use in the world of health and
medicine. Great things surely lie ahead for SMS and
medicine alike.
About the Author -
Sharon Housley is the VP of Marketing for NotePage,
Inc. a software company for communication software solutions.
http://www.notepage.net
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