SAN GABRIEL VALLEYWIDE NEWS
Winston Chua

ALHAMBRA – Galvanized for years by how difficult it is for many people to care for themselves, Donna Spruijt-Metz ventured into a career where she could do something to help change the lives of children in healthy ways.

“Health has always fascinated me since I was a kid and how hard it is to take care of yourself,” Spruijt-Metz said. “I was working with doctors who smoked.”

Spruijt-Metz is the principal investigator of a large health research project from the University of Southern California. Both the USC Keck School of Medicine and the USC Viterbi School of Engineering are a part of the Alhambra project. She leads the team that is hoping to help disadvantaged, minority children in real time better take care of themselves.
Spruijt-Metz and members of her team, Shri Narayanan, Murali Annavaram, Urbashi Mitra, Gaurav Sukhatme are using Bluetooth technology, GPS systems and text messaging to monitor how sedentary or active a patient is. By using these forms of technology, researchers far away from their subjects being tested can get a sense of how much activity is being done and personalize workouts or activities based on pre-interviews. The result might be indicating students after school to do 10 minutes of tai chi or five minutes of squeezing a tennis ball, for example.

In the near future, a scenario might play out like this: A beep sounds and researchers in front of computers in labs can track a teen’s far away activities. Galvanic skin responses, heart rates and movement will be tracked. From the knowledge they have accrued, researchers can make suggestions through text messages for kids as to what activities might be good to do, if one is too sedentary.

Over the weekend three teenagers wore a chest strap as part of the KNOWME network, named after the ability of the weight loss system to be customized to a participant of the program. The KNOWME network also includes the Web and text messaging to monitor a teen’s behavior. It consists of a heart monitor and acceleration monitor strapped around a subject’s chest. The principal investigator is impressed by the progress of the project, even though there is still a ways to go.
She hopes more and more people will join in the effort to promote health. “Every story that we can bring to the public helps,” Spruijt-Metz said said. “Pediatric child obesity in minority populations is such an incredible threat to the lives of these kids. Every story raises public awareness a little bit more.”

Spruijt-Metz said, who has been with USC for 10 years and received her doctorate degree in adolescent health and medical ethics, said that it is more expensive to eat healthy, an option some families simply cannot afford. This particular aspect of the project has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and is part of a larger series of grants.

As for why she is not satisfied with the standard fare of measuring activity?

She said traditional measurements do not give data in real time. The results have to be analyzed or even studied in a lab and there is little way to use personalized information. In short, she said the old methods for helping those with weight issues is simply ineffective and unnecessarily time consuming. Bluetooth and real-time technology gives experts the ability to correct behaviors immediately and learn on the spot, something Spruijt-Metz said is the key to changing an unhealthy lifestyle.