JMIR Research Protocols

Demographic shifts are increasing the global demand for long-term care services, coinciding with a worldwide shortage of health care personnel. Service robots, designed to perform tasks in both professional and personal use, are perceived as a potential solution to alleviate health care personnel’s workload and enhance the quality of care. However, the existing literature is fragmented and heterogeneous, with a limited emphasis on the role of service robots in supporting residents rather than health care personnel. Furthermore, there is a lack of consistent definitions of service robotic technologies and a scarcity of studies on implementation models and frameworks.

Communication is a human right; despite this, children with cerebral palsy and dysarthria experience constraints due to their physical disability, affecting their opportunity to reach their full potential and ability to fully participate in play, school, and socializing. For many, their challenge to produce clear speech that can be understood is interpreted by others as an intellectual impairment. Children with moderate-severe speech impairments such as dysarthria often rely on technology solutions, which can translate text or symbols to speech manually or using a single binary switch, scanning hierarchical switch‑access menus. This is time-consuming, arduous, and 15 to 20 times slower than normal speech. Technology innovations, developed via high-quality datasets of audio-video samples of dysarthric speech, hold the key to build personalized speech-recognition algorithms that allow us to bridge this gap.

Medical adherence is traditionally defined as the extent to which a person’s behavior corresponds with agreed-upon recommendations from a health care provider. The rapid diffusion of patient-facing digital health applications (DHAs) challenges the direct applicability of this framework to software-mediated interventions. Unlike pharmacological treatments, DHAs automatically generate detailed usage data but lack a broadly accepted standard for determining which specific data points and usage patterns actually constitute “adequate” use across a broad variety of medical indications and population groups. In parallel, DHAs are becoming increasingly embedded in formal regulatory and reimbursement pathways. A notable example is Germany, where recent reforms plan to link at least 20% of reimbursement for —formally regulated and reimbursed DHAs—to performance-related indicators that implicitly operationalize adherence as a determinant of reimbursable performance. Despite this growing policy relevance, adherence in patient-facing DHAs remains conceptually fragmented and methodologically heterogeneous.

refers to the condition in which the individual experiences a sensation of pain as if the is being cut around with scissors. This condition can be correlated to the fissure in ano. It has been described as an acute superficial break in the continuity of the anoderm, usually in the posterior midline of the anal canal. The incidence of anal fissures is around 1 in 350 adults. Management can be divided into conservative, operative, and adjuvant therapies. The main challenge in the management of fissure in ano is the increased rate of recurrence. Here comes the importance of an alternative therapy which can reduce the recurrence. The recurrence rate of fissure in ano by nonsurgical procedures is 60%, and with the protocol, the expected recurrence rate is 30%.

Labor pain is among the most intense forms of pain, and neuraxial analgesia, including epidural, spinal, and combined spinal-epidural techniques, is considered the gold standard for its management. Despite its effectiveness, persistent misconceptions, cultural barriers, and disparities in awareness contribute to underuse among certain populations. Educational interventions have been developed to address these gaps, yet a comprehensive synthesis of such efforts in the United States is lacking.

Lyme disease is the most common vector-borne illness in the United States. The limitations of traditional surveillance strategies for Lyme disease affect the ability to reliably track its burden and evaluate interventions. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) established the Surveillance Based Lyme Disease Network (SubLyme) in September 2023 to strengthen Lyme disease surveillance and research using electronic health record (EHR) data.

Chronic atrophic gastritis (CAG) is widely recognized as one of the precancerous lesions of gastric cancer. Helicobacter pylori is one of the important risk factors for CAG and gastric cancer. However, a large proportion of patients with CAG cannot avoid developing gastric cancer even after eradicating H pylori. It is necessary to find a safe and effective treatment to suppress this “inflammation-cancer” progression. The Qi-Lian-Xiao-Pi prescription (WW-1), a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), has been reported to be effective in the treatment of CAG. However, the evidence is subject to methodological limitations.

The aging population presents both opportunities and challenges. Both global and Malaysian statistics have shown that an increase in longevity is also marked by an increase in the time spent in poor health. A key measure of healthy aging is the ability to lead an independent life. This has implications not only for the individual’s quality of life but also for society as a whole; loss of independence with age is associated with increased economic burden and reduced workforce productivity. Understanding and subsequently addressing these age-related declines (slowing or reversing them) is critical in improving the health and societal challenges faced by older adults. However, most studies are focused on Western populations. The scarcity of interventions tailored to multiethnic Asian populations is compounded by the fact that existing measurements rely heavily on Western-designed psychometric instruments, which frequently fail in capturing true cognitive health because of large cultural and educational gaps.

High mortality and prevalence rates are hallmarks of chronic heart failure (CHF). Patients frequently have a much lower quality of life as a result of diminished exercise tolerance. Chinese guidelines have recommended Yiqi Fumai lyophilized injection (YQFM) for the treatment of heart failure, although there is currently inadequate evidence to support its effectiveness in increasing exercise tolerance in these patients.

Influenza A viruses are a significant cause of global morbidity, mortality, and economic losses. Swine are considered an important host for pandemic emergence; however, knowledge on the ecology and evolution of swine influenza viruses in relation to pig production and exchange systems is limited. The PigFluCam+ project was first initiated in 2019 as a One Health–focused research collaboration between public and animal health stakeholders in Cambodia.

Malnutrition, a leading cause of mortality and morbidity in children aged <5 years, requires early detection and intervention. In Ayurveda, “Kumarasosha” closely corresponds to childhood malnutrition, with its pathophysiology and treatment principles offering a more precise and effective approach to management.

Diabetic retinopathy (DR) and age-related macular degeneration (AMD) are 2 of the leading causes of vision loss worldwide. As population aging and diabetes prevalence increase, timely detection of these conditions has become essential. However, limited professionalism and insufficient training in ophthalmic screening among general medicine physicians may lead to delayed diagnosis and treatment. Artificial intelligence (AI)–assisted diagnostic tools may help to improve the screening of DR and AMD in routine clinical practice.