Meach, Rachel, Carless, David, Sanal-Hayes, Nilihan E M et al. · Journal of patient experience · 2024 · DOI
This study looked at how a smartphone app called PaceMe helps people with long COVID manage their symptoms by balancing activity with rest. Twenty-five people used the app and were interviewed about their experience after 3-6 months. The app helped participants better understand and manage post-exertional malaise (the worsening of symptoms after activity), feel supported, and feel more in control of their condition.
This research is important because it centers patient experiences with a self-management tool specifically designed to prevent post-exertional malaise, a hallmark symptom of ME/CFS and long COVID. The findings suggest digital adaptive pacing interventions may be a practical rehabilitation option for long COVID patients and could inform similar approaches for ME/CFS populations.
This study does not prove the PaceMe app is clinically effective or superior to other treatments—it only documents patient perceptions of benefit. Without a control group or objective outcome measures, it cannot establish causation between using the app and actual symptom improvement, nor can it determine which specific features drive reported benefits.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
The first block is for the primary paper and is the citation you should use in research work. The atlas-snapshot line only applies if you are specifically referring to this atlas’s reading of the paper on the date shown.
Primary citation
Meach, Rachel, Carless, David, Sanal-Hayes, Nilihan E M, Mclaughlin, Marie, Hayes, Lawrence D, Mair, Jacqueline L, et al. (2024). An Adaptive Pacing Intervention for Adults Living With Long COVID: A Narrative Study of Patient Experiences of Using the PaceMe app.. Journal of patient experience. https://doi.org/10.1177/23743735241272158
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-meach-2024-adaptive-pacing,
author = {Meach, Rachel and Carless, David and Sanal-Hayes, Nilihan E M and Mclaughlin, Marie and Hayes, Lawrence D and Mair, Jacqueline L and Ormerod, Jane and Hilliard, Natalie and Ingram, Joanne and Sculthorpe, Nicholas F},
title = {An Adaptive Pacing Intervention for Adults Living With Long COVID: A Narrative Study of Patient Experiences of Using the PaceMe app.},
journal = {Journal of patient experience},
year = {2024},
doi = {10.1177/23743735241272158},
note = {PubMed: 39529893},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/meach-2024-adaptive-pacing},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-30. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/meach-2024-adaptive-pacing
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