User requirement analysis for personalized cancer dietary planning and menu construction

Abstract

Cancer has been a major cause of death in Malaysia and total number of patients diagnosed is increasing each year. Based on anecdotes of cancer patients and survivors, we found that many patients and survivors do not seek for proper diet guidance and rely on their network for such information. Realizing the importance of proper diet to cancer patients, a personalized dietary planning and menu construction is proposed. The proposed system will offer information on dietary and nutritional tips, seven day meal plan and collection of healthy recipes. Research on user requirement of the system has been conducted in order to identify and analyze information regarding cancer patients' diet and nutritional that is useful to them. The outcome of this research is a complete list of user requirements for development of personalized cancer dietary planning and menu constructions. The result of the user requirements analysis is a web-based system that recommends tips, guidelines and meal plan for cancer patients. All recommendations are based on individual health information and current health status. © 2010 IEEE.