Diabetic patients spend up to 40% of the day with excessively high blood sugar levels, which can damage blood vessels and lead to long-term health consequences (Van Dijk et al., 2013). Medication to maintain diabetes is effective to a certain degree, however, studies show that patients still spend up to seven hours per day with abnormally high glucose levels even when drugs are administered (Van Dijk et al., 2013). Clearly, further interventions are needed to minimise the negative effects of diabetes.

In order to help chronically ill children, we need to focus on many aspects. First and most importantly - their mental health - how they are coping, what are their strengths and difficulties. How we can support their strengths and help with their difficulties. But if they already have the disease then we need to monitor how their treatment is followed, we need to give information on their condition, their health and wellbeing, we need to support their general health behaviors so they could live healthier lives and at the same time empower and give a sense of success. These components that are necessary to induce behavioral change work only when these are delivered in a way that kids love. And don’t they enjoy playing games? In our mobile health game kids need to save the Triumfland city from the Disease Monster but how did we come up with that? How did we know about the needs of the users?

Triumf health app is now available for school-aged kids with various conditions with the aim to give them psychological as well as treatment related support and foster healthy lifestyle. Have a look at the pediatric disease paths that the game features.

Triumf Health is now officially a research institution! You can also find our profile from the Research Information System (ETIS) because I (Kadri Haljas) am now acting both as a CEO and a postdoctoral researcher. Check out ETIS for more information.

Chronic illnesses predispose children for higher risk in developing mental disorders. This article gives an overview of the important associations between mental health and chronic illnesses among children.

Triumf Health has opened an equity funding round with the aim to raise €1-1.5M to be used in connection with public grants.

In our theory driven Triumf game design philosophy, we have combined the mental contrasting and implementation intention theories about self-regulation and behavioral change into our underlying gameplay narrative. Based on mental contrasting theory, we start by giving a player an idealised state of an imaginary city.

Digital health interventions such as the Triumf game have great potential as health improving scalable tools by contributing to the effectiveness, accessibility and personalisation of healthcare delivery. However, digital health interventions (as any other intervention) need to be evaluated using proper research methodology in order to prove effectiveness or at least safety.

A lot of our blog posts have focussed on childhood cancer. However, in addition to pediatric cancer patients, Triumf Health also supports children who are affected by obesity and/or diabetes. In this blog post we want to give an overview why we think addressing and treating these conditions is essential.

Why do parents often hesitate before providing mobile health treatment for their children? Here we address 5 common concerns.

The importance of physical activity and harmful effects of inactivity are becoming more and more evident. Organisations are investing more resources to tackle the rising trend of inactivity and the burden it places on healthcare. Having this in mind, in this post we look into the current research of physical activity and childhood cancer patients. Is it actually feasible and beneficial? If so, what should be the next steps?

Mobile apps claim to help in coping with mental health problems, but few have been thoroughly tested. How to pick the safe one among thousands on offer?

In the end of January we had another round of obtaining feedback on the game together with (former) pediatric cancer patients. Read on to see what we learned from this testing period.

We applied for Mobilitas Pluss programme that aims to bring young researchers to Estonia to be able to conduct clinical trials based on our solution for ill children.

A kick-off post of the new year is about our top accomplishments and future goals. Read what we consider the most important parts of this journey. It’s a long post, grab a coffee!

In the new post José Prieto, our CTO, shares a wonderful interview with his uncle Juan Garay – cancer survivor, and his aunt Valeria Ulrich who previously volunteered in a pediatric oncology hospital. To learn some beautiful lessons about the power of love and support, read more here

Who are the real-life superheroes putting effort in helping humankind in the field of cancer? Learn more!

Comprehensive care is the key in childhood cancer treatment. Psychological support is an integral part of comprehensive care. This post gives further insights into the importance of psychology in cancer care ans is based on an interview with two psychologists working with cancer patients in Estonia, Kaie Jõeveer & Anneliis Tali.

When a child is diagnosed with cancer, parents want to know everything about diagnosis and the best treatment options. So they often search the web for them. In our new post we discuss strategies of finding reliable internet sources about childhood cancer.

The following blog post is written by researcher Keiu Paapsi who recently published a paper on childhood cancer incidence and survival in Estonia. Here she gives an overview of the current situation in Estonia compared to other countries and discusses why childhood cancer needs more public attention.