Smartphones are technologically advanced mobile phone devices that use software similar to computer-based devices as an easy-to-use interface. This review article aims to inform palliative care professionals, cancer patients and their caregivers about the role of smartphone applications (applications) in the provision of palliative care services through a brief review of the existing literature on the development, feasibility, effectiveness of such applications. There is a need for the dearth of sincere palliative care clinicians to work together with software professionals to develop appropriate smartphone applications in accordance with the needs of the family / caregivers and the biopsychosocial characteristics of patients that influence the evidence driven by palliative cancer care technology.
Smartphones are technologically advanced mobile phone devices that use software similar to computer-based devices as an easy-to-use interface. A single smartphone could work simultaneously as pagers, cell phones and PDAs. The use of smartphones and their software applications (applications) gives healthcare professionals the opportunity to integrate the latest technology into clinical practice. Applications are software installed on mobile devices such as smartphones.
There may soon be an application for that. Cancer researchers have devised a small device that - with the help of a smartphone - could allow doctors to find out in 60 minutes whether a suspicious lump in a patient is cancerous or benign.
Instead of cutting off masses that they suspect are tumors, oncologists often use a thick needle to remove some cells from a lump for analysis in a pathology lab. But the tests used there, such as examining the shape of cells and staining various proteins, are sometimes inconclusive. Laboratory tests also take several days.
As an alternative, the medical-scientific team Ralph Weissleder at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston developed a miniature version of a nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) machine, the working tool that allows researchers to identify chemical compounds by how their cores react magnetic fields. The researchers also found a way to connect magnetic nanoparticles to proteins so the machine can extract these specific proteins from a gemisch of chemicals, such as those found in a sample of tumor cells. A standard chemistry laboratory NMR machine approaches the size of a filing cabinet, but the new device is as large as a cup of coffee.