NeuroMetrix Inc reached a milestone with over 1 million hours of Quell therapy and health data uploaded to the Quell Health Cloud as of August 1, 2016. Quell is a wearable therapeutic technology that provides drug-free relief from chronic pain and is available without a prescription. The device communicates with a smartphone app that provides objective feedback to the user about their therapy utilization, sleep characteristics, and activity levels. This data is securely backed up to the Quell Health Cloud.

Insights from an analysis of this data include:

  • Quell is used 6 hours a day, on average. This intensive level of utilization is expected given that Quell is often used to help manage moderate to severe chronic pain such as low back pain, nerve pain, arthritic pain, and fibromyalgia.
  • The majority of people with chronic pain suffer from low quality sleep and 71% of Quell owners have used their device while sleeping. Quell has features that help control chronic pain while sleeping. About 38% of Quell therapy is delivered between the hours of 8 PM and 8 AM. Quell users sleep an average of 6.6 hours per night.
  • The Quell Health Cloud data also exposes challenges experienced by those with chronic pain. Nearly 40% of Quell users average less than 6 hours of sleep. About 27% of users have a high number of periodic leg movements, which may disrupt sleep and is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease.
  • People suffering from chronic pain often have reduced levels of activity, which further increases their pain and elevates their risk of obesity and heart disease among other chronic conditions. Quell is designed to promote activity by providing pain relief while engaging in activities. Encouragingly, users wearing Quell for at least 4 hours during daytime hours walk an average of 34 minutes per day with their device.

“One million hours of therapy data uploaded to the Quell Health Cloud is an important milestone in our effort to develop Quell as a digital health intervention for chronic pain. The Quell Health Cloud, already one of the largest chronic pain databases in the world, is growing rapidly as our customers create accounts to realize its value in helping them manage their chronic pain,” says Shai N. Gozani, MD, PhD, president and CEO of NeuroMetrix, in a release. “We have only started mining the data. We believe that the Quell Health Cloud will eventually provide our customers with real-time guidance to help optimize their Quell therapy and more generally to reduce their chronic pain. This data is also valuable for better understanding chronic pain at a population level.”