Sawyer, Abbey, Preston, Rory, Leeming, Harry et al. · Frontiers in digital health · 2025 · DOI
This study looked at whether a smartphone app with a wearable armband helps people with ME/CFS and Long COVID manage their energy and symptoms. Over 1,300 people with these conditions used the app and answered questions about whether it helped them. Most people who used the app for at least a month reported feeling like they better understood their energy limits and how to manage daily activities, though some improvements may have simply come from tracking their own experience over time.
Energy management is a critical challenge for people with ME/CFS, particularly given post-exertional malaise vulnerability. This study provides preliminary evidence that accessible digital tools may help patients track and understand their individual symptom patterns and energy limitations, potentially supporting behavioral strategies central to managing the condition. The work supports further investigation into whether such tools can improve real-world health outcomes.
This study does not prove that the app caused improvements in patient outcomes—participants' condition may have improved due to self-awareness from tracking alone, or other external factors unrelated to the app. Without a control group comparison, it remains unclear whether the app provides benefits beyond what patients would experience from simply monitoring themselves over time. The findings represent self-reported perceptions rather than objective clinical outcomes or long-term health effects.
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 →
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