With its A Life in a Day Program, The Method creates experiences that are intended to give insights into what it is like to live with a particular condition. Participants go about their lives as normal for up to 24 hours while being sent interactive challenges via a mobile app and being called by actors who roleplay situations based on the situations faced by people living with the condition.
The goal of the program is to put participants in the shoes of a patient with a particular condition to help them understand what it is like to live with that disease. The Method targets the experience of a range of roles in pharma and healthcare, including medical and R&D staff who may benefit from having a clearer understanding of the lives of the patients who participate in their clinical trials.
A range of experiences is available in therapeutic areas such as cardiovascular and respiratory disease, oncology, dermatology, and immunology. The Method has now started offering an experience designed to simulate type 2 diabetes, a widespread condition that imposes burdens on patients.
“We need our healthcare system to become much better at understanding the impact this condition has on every part of a person’s life. I would go as far as to say this should be an obsession. Our type 2 diabetes learning experience provides a unique opportunity to get under the skin of what it really means to live with this condition,” said Mark Doyle, co-founder of The Method.
The decision to add Type 2 diabetes to the list of experiences provided through the program reflects the rising prevalence of the condition, which is forecast to affect almost 5m people in the UK, where The Method is based, by 2030. How those people respond to their diagnosis will influence the extent to which Type 2 diabetes affects their health.
Lifestyle changes can help Type 2 diabetes go into remission but it can be hard for patients to make the changes needed to manage the condition and reduce the risk of severe complications such as vision loss and amputations. The Method sees its program as a way to help physicians and other stakeholders elate to the challenges patients face and provide more effective care and support.
