Tablet-based support for older adults with severe mood disorders treated in an ambulatory geriatric psychiatry setting: protocol of a pilot study of the eCare@home system

Studies show that mood disorders show an unfavourable prognosis in late life, with a higher risk of relapse and chronicity than in younger populations. Elderly patients with these disorders face a number of challenges in terms of managing the disorder. The eCare@home (ECH) platform aims to optimize long-term face-to-face treatment for these patients using a user-friendly tablet computer. The platform is designed to 1) to improve patient’s awareness and knowledge of recurrent mood disorders and their treatment, 2) to promote self-management through a simple daily monitoring tool, and 3) to facilitate (online) contact about their treatment with clinicians. The study aims to assess system acceptability, system usability and client satisfaction of the ECH platform from the perspective of patients and their clinicians. If tablet-based support for this group is shown to be feasible, the implication is to design a large-scale process and outcome evaluation.

baseline (T0)

week 8 (T1)

week 16 (T2)

ECH is an Internet-based multi-user system that connects applications on different types of computers. It is an add-on to the existing treatment of older patients with recurrent depressive or bipolar disorder, which consists of a tablet computer application for the patients (the “HomeTab”) and a web-based clinician’s portal (“CP”). HomeTab is the tablet computer application that provides:

A personal mood-monitoring platform for patients to daily monitor certain aspects associated with their illness, psycho-educational resources on disease-management, medication and self-management activities, in the form of a wellness library, and, videoconferencing to facilitate easy access to a clinician. During the study period, the clinician will contact the patient at week 8 and at week 16 by videoconferencing, or sooner if necessary.

The CP of the ECH system is a web-based platform. Through it, the patient's self-reported mood, sleep and activity are visible to the clinician. Clinicians will be instructed to use these measures to prepare for face-to-face sessions, or during face-to-face sessions, to discuss salient patterns in tracked symptoms. In addition, the CP allows clinicians to push relevant psycho-educational material to the HomeTab.