Modern information technology in cardiac rehabilitation. Applications for mobile devices (review)

Using information technologies at all stages of patient care is necessary at the current state of medical development. It is particularly important to implement innovative information technologies in the management of patients with cardiovascular diseases in the outpatient setting, in secondary prevention and rehabilitation that continues throughout life. Various wearable devices for hemodynamic monitoring, electrocardiographic and physical activity assessment, that help the patient`s condition during rehabilitation, have been widely used in clinical practice all over the world. However, considering the outpatient setting, a cardiologist or rehabilitologist should to be able to monitor the data obtained using a single source, and to communicate with the patient in order to adjust treatment. Applications for mobile devices providing feedback can be a convenient tool in this regard. To date, many applications have been developed for smartphones, including those that synchronize with wearable devices, to record patient parameters, including the level of physical activity. Most of them are limited by self-control. Both in Russia and in other countries, a number of problems and limitations associated with the use of these technologies are related to the patient, the imperfection of the health care system, and problems with the devices themselves. The present article is devoted to an overview of existing remote rehabilitation technologies focusing on the applications for mobile devices. The authors present a short summary on domestic and international development in information technologies, identify the problems and future development of this area in health care.