Efficacy analysis of a body-mass-reduction treatment using mathematical modelling

Abstract

Obesity was categorized as a chronic disease by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1997 because the problem had reached at pandemic level and presented a serious risk factor with respect to people who have been developing type-2 diabetes, hyperdyslipidaemia and hypertension. These four risk factors tend to accelerate the development of cardiovascular diseases. As a result, obesity has also become a significant social and economic burden. An important observation with regard to the population exhibiting increased body mass is the fact that they would like to decrease their weight, although they are frequently not successful. In this paper, a modelling-and-simulation approach is used for the presentation, analysis and explanation of the reasons that have an important influence on the treatment's efficacy. The presented modelling results are based on the observation and treatment experiences of patients in a specialized institution over a period of 15 years, where each year around 100 new patients enter the treatment programme. The introduction of the motivation principle in the model structure allows strong support for the actions of the therapeutic team in a closed-loop manner, as the checking of different scenarios for the individual patient is easily realized. The efficacy of the treatment can, in this way, be significantly improved. In the past 6 years, which mainly involved open-loop treatments, the dropout rate was 70%. After the introduction of proposed closed-loop approach, this was reduced to 27% in the past year. As a consequence, the effect on body-mass control was significantly improved. © 2013 © Taylor & Francis.