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Bio-signals Collecting System for Fatigue Level Classification, 2023, Younggun Lee et al
I've just tried it. This is what it said:
Test Duration= 120 seconds
Number of false starts= 0
Average response time= 367 msec over 26 attempts.
Your results show that your alertness may be suboptimal. Consider medical evaluation.
I'm going to get all boring and make it complicated but I think this tool for ME/CFS might be more interesting used in a different way than necessarily it is/just doing the 120s and taking an average.
Following the obvious 'learning effect' ie where I'm rubbish geting my eye in for the first few goes, I noticed myself getting tired and worse half way through yesterday and had to change hands at some point and noticed an uptake at that point. Today I found I had to switch hands regularly and the time was drastically faster with the fresh hand and then tailed off after about 4/5 goes then picking up with other hand repeated almost same time pattern (reaction time doubling after 5 goes)
I guess for pwme that varies with severity and PEM but also what condition you are generally in that day (sensory, cognitive, motor) but I wonder whether the more interesting measure (which might vary based on this) is when the 'tail off' effect ie starting to get more rubbish instead of better with practice, kicks in as much as the 'fatigue' idea of just being sluggish. So I'd be intrigued if there were finer-grained options on tests for us.
Of course this is where the 'if anyone really actually wanted to 'help' and do something useful for us' part is (and why I don't believe the 'good intentions' fop from so many)... if this type of software was used to experiment with different 2-day CPET type things and testing what difference taking breaks or chunking into smaller time periods has on different pwme vs 'norms' normal distribution then we might start having some useful advice that could help us manage our illness. I'd of course want the caveat that it wasn't about 'function at the time' ie take more breaks and perform better that day, or for weeks, but also checking to see whether in the months that followed such 'performing at limit' (ie learning to 'cheat the PEM'/ride the limit) led to relapse. Which is where those averages certainly would also be interesting?
Plus of course I'm sure that things like whether you are lying down and comfortable vs the awkwardness of set-up that measn re having your finger in an easy position to see and click all matter in playing off health vs this test. But it surely could also easily be adapted to show the difference in reclining vs standing or the effect of sitting up for hours on certain people simply by changing to a hand-held trigger type clicker + google glasses for display. Heck someone from the product design area could do tests to look at different set-ups and colours/resolution/contrast that make it 'kinder' or easier on us - which could have implications for future developments that might help future pwme.
With tech going where it is there seem fewer excuses for these simple things not to be converted into well-thought-through tests by scientists who actually listen to patients so can indeed control for the various different variables we all have.
