Background

Symptom management, an important component of multiple sclerosis (MS) care, can be achieved by using a patient app tool to manage symptoms and track/store symptom issues to share with clinicians.

Multiple Sclerosis Association of America (MSAA) and @Point of Care collaborated to develop complementary apps for use by patients and their clinicians that facilitate sharing of data: My MS Manager ^TM, a HIPAA compliant patient app, and Multiple Sclerosis @Point of Care, a clinician app. By enhancing the patient app with symptom management tools, patients can track and manage their symptoms and improve their quality of life.

Objectives

Analyze impact of patient app in assessing differences in symptom severity based on clinical phenotype and in empowering patients to track/manage their MS symptoms.

Methods

MSAA and @Point of Care added more validated measures to the app to facilitate tracking of bladder control (Bladder Control Scale; BLCS; 11/2019), depression (Patient Health Questionnaire Score for Depression; PHQ-9; 08/2019), cognitive function (PROMIS Cognitive Function-Short Form 8a; 03/2019), and fatigue (Modified Fatigue Impact Scale; MFIS; 08/2015). Patient data were analyzed to assess: 1) symptom severity by phenotype, 2) quality of life (QOL) factors most affected by symptom severity, and 3) benefits of frequent app use (>26 visits) on symptoms.

Results

Of 22,858 registered users on the My MS Manager app, 6717 patients have already identified their clinical phenotype and/or tracked their bladder control, depression, cognitive function, and/or fatigue scores:

• SPMS patients compared to RRMS patients had

–Significantly greater bladder control issues that alter their activities (35% vs 18%; P = 0.002) and severely affect their lifestyle (17% vs 8%; P = 0.033)

–Significantly worse depression symptoms for “more than half the days/nearly every day”

–Reported their depression issues more severely affect their work (>19% difference)

• PPMS compared to RRMS/SPMS patients showed no significant differences in bladder, depression, cognitive function, and fatigue symptoms

• Infrequent RRMS users (≤ 26 visits) of the My MS Manager app experienced higher depression severity as opposed to frequent RRMS users (>26 visits)

Conclusions

The My MS Manager patient app facilitates the ability of patients with MS to record their symptoms utilizing validated measures, to track and manage their MS, and to discuss their symptoms with their clinicians.