[The course of pain with electronic diaries, real time measurements and time series analysis]

Important physiological parameters such as blood pressure, ECG and others are measured today on a continuous basis or at fixed intervals and are documented together with the date and the time. Individual results and subjective data are ascertained through questioning the patient, observation or patient's self-assessment and are documented with paper and pencil, without having any certainty of the exact time of ascertainment or that such is comprehensible. Battery-operated microcomputers have been developed in the form of electronic diaries (E.D.) for patients. Upon emitting an auditory signal, the questions appear in the computer display, and the questions are then correspondingly answered by the patient. These answers are fed to the permanent data store and are transferred on-line and processed at a later time in a PC. The time and data of the entries are simultaneously registered and are included in the complete document when it is later printed out. A capacity of 64 kbytes suffices to accommodate the data collected; likewise, the battery is sufficient for constant use. The entries are made as categorical data or numerically. Free-style entries are not possible. With the aid of a specially-developed program, the courses of a chronic pain syndrome in patients with degenerative joint diseases were studied. The percentage change in the pain course, benefit risk considerations, prognoses with the aid of sequential analyses and plausibility criteria can be calculated from the data. The advantages of this new instrument are its simple handling and reliable functioning. Its disadvantage is that it lacks the possibility to allow free-style entries.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)