JMIR Formative Research

Across Japan, there are “non-physician areas” where medical institutions are not present and health care access is difficult. Although these areas are defined as a single administrative category, they may vary according to regional demographic characteristics. Understanding this possible heterogeneity may be important for developing more context-sensitive strategies to improve health care accessibility.

Children of parents with mental health illness (COPMI) have the right to receive preventive interventions to avoid developing their own mental health and socioeconomic problems. However, access to interventions varies widely within health care and social services depending on their geographical location in Sweden. In this regard, mobile health (mHealth) interventions for COPMI provide a pathway for more equitable and sustainable preventive support.

Epilepsy affects multiple dimensions of health. Exercise may serve as a nonpharmacological strategy to improve health outcomes among adults with epilepsy; however, translating this potential into effective and scalable interventions remains challenging. Before advancing to efficacy trials, early-stage research is needed to establish whether exercise interventions are feasible, acceptable, and appropriate for this population.

Emergency-to–intensive care unit (ICU) admissions are high-stakes transitions in care, where delays or documentation errors can compromise patient safety and disrupt operational efficiency. Although digital order systems can support these workflows, traditional platforms often lack real-time traceability and structured input logic, leaving them vulnerable to duplicate submissions, lost orders, and misaligned ICU bed reservations.

Migraine is a common neurological disorder that affects a significant proportion of the global population but remains largely underdiagnosed and undertreated. This study analyzed discussions related to migraines in English and Arabic across Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Oman, and Qatar.

Older outpatients with chronic diseases are susceptible to muscle weakness and functional disabilities. Recently, various wearable devices have been developed to generate health lifelogs in daily life; however, data from patients with chronic diseases remain scarce. Previous studies have shown that subjective sleep efficiency assessed by self-questionnaires is associated with grip strength, but whether objective sleep efficiency detected by wearable devices is associated with physical function and body composition remains unclear.

Type 2 diabetes is a widespread chronic condition in which blood glucose and body weight management constitute essential therapeutic targets. Emerging technologies have the potential to aid complex therapeutic pharmacotherapy choices that are optimally tailored to individual needs.

This exploratory case study primarily examined the feasibility of using consumer-grade wearable devices for longitudinal sleep tracking and observed descriptive visual trends between sleep patterns and balance performance. Two college students participated over 4 months. Participant 1 used an Apple Watch Series 5 and an OURA ring; participant 2 used a Fitbit Charge 5 and an OURA ring. Data were collected continuously alongside daily sleep diaries and monthly sensory organization test (SOT) balance assessments. As a primary feasibility outcome, missing data rates were initially high (up to 75.2%) but improved significantly after implementing structured weekly check-ins, dropping to 14.1% and 20.3% for the wrist devices, 9.4% and 25% for the OURA rings, and 0% and 6.25% for the sleep diaries in the optimized phase. Wearables showed varying concordance with sleep diaries for time in bed (TIB), with the Apple Watch showing the least bias (–0.6 min) and the Fitbit and OURA overestimating TIB. While devices showed excellent within-participant agreement for total sleep time (intraclass correlation coefficient=0.97‐0.99), agreement was poor for specific sleep stages. Regarding secondary exploratory observations, descriptive visual trends showed that fluctuations in sleep timing and duration coincided with changes in SOT visual subscale scores. In conclusion, consumer wearables are feasible for long-term sleep monitoring when supported by active compliance protocols. While sleep consistency was visually patterned alongside postural stability, these balance findings are strictly exploratory, hypothesis-generating, and not generalizable due to the small sample size and potential practice effects from repeated testing.

Acute poisoning in children remains a significant cause of emergency admission and is largely preventable. Its epidemiological profile varies across settings according to age, household environment, and locally available toxic agents. Understanding the patterns, management, and outcomes of pediatric poisoning is important for improving prevention and clinical care.

Accelerometers produce high-resolution physical activity data, but commonly used summary measures often reduce these data to total volume, intensity, or variability and may not retain interpretable temporal structure across the day. Cluster-based summaries may provide a way to characterize daily physical activity profiles while preserving information about when activity occurs.

Early detection and monitoring of wound-related complications after total knee arthroplasty (TKA) are critical to optimize outcomes and preserve implants. Conventional postoperative monitoring relies on in-person assessment and patient-reported symptoms, which may delay recognition. Noncontact imaging acquired in the clinic or at home offers a potential route to earlier and more consistent assessment.

Apolipoprotein E ε4 (APOE-ε4), the strongest genetic risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer disease (AD), is associated with early neuromotor vulnerability that may precede measurable cognitive decline. Because speech integrates fine neuromotor processes, acoustic analysis could offer a sensitive, noninvasive marker of preclinical effects.