INSULOT
A cellular phone-based edutainment learning tool for children with type 1 diabetes
- Noriaki Aoki, MD, PHD, MS, FJSIM12,
- Sachiko Ohta, MD, PHD123,
- Taisuke Okada, MD, PHD14,
- Mariko Oishi, MD, PHD, FJSIM15 and
- Tsuguya Fukui, MD, MPH, PHD, FJSIM6
- 1Center for Health Service, Outcomes Research and Development-Japan (CHORD-J), Tokyo, Japan
- 2School of Health Information Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas
- 3Okayama Central Hospital, Okayama, Japan
- 4Department of Pediatrics, Kochi University School of Medicine, Kochi, Japan
- 5Oishi Clinic, Kyoto, Japan
- 6St. Luke’s International Hospital, Tokyo, Japan
- Address correspondence to Noriaki Aoki, MD, PhD, MS, FJSIM, Assistant Professor, School of Health Information Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, 7000 Fannin, UCT-600, Houston, TX 77030. E-mail: noriaki.aoki{at}uth.tmc.edu
A particular type of education needs to be designed to encourage, motivate, and boost the confidence of type 1 diabetic patients. “Edutainment” has been recognized as an attractive approach to improving educational outcomes for such patients (1). As an edutainment tool, we have developed a cellular phone-based “game” that we call “INSULOT,” a term coined to denote “insulin” and “slot machine.” This tool has been implemented and preliminarily evaluated.
INSULOT is a special, three-window slot machine designed to teach the relationships among plasma glucose level, food (carbohydrate grams), and insulin dosage. INSULOT uses algorithms to simulate postprandial glucose levels, while considering distributions to incorporate clinical uncertainties. The first step is to calculate the “carbohydrate grams” in …
