How to calculate the impact of activities on pain levels

Quantified Self General Health
1

I’m new here. Really excited to be here. I’m not a statistician and could use some help on the way to becoming a QS-er.

This is really project #1 and I’d love to attend the next QS meetup in my area with a success story!!! :smiley:

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give.

I am trying to create a spreadsheet to track the impact of various activities on overall pain level (related to some hip and back pain I’ve been having).

I REALLY like this talk by Chris Bartley: http://quantifiedself.com/2013/12/chris-bartley-understanding-chronic-fatigue/.

I would LOVE to learn how to do that. If there’s anyone out there that would be willing to walk me through setting the spreadsheet up in Google Sheets (preferred) or Excel, I would be sooooo thankful!

Not sure if it helps, but at 3:39 in the video, Chris lists 39 variables in his test.

For me, that would look something like this:

  • 1 output variable (pain level)
  • Active days vs. rest days
  • Mental attitude (stress levels)
  • Sedentary activity (amount of time in a chair, amount of time in car driving, amount of time sleeping)
  • Dietary indicators (changes to diet, including liters of water consumed)
  • Activities (martial arts, swimming, weight lifting, bike riding)
  • Muscles targeted for massage therapy (could be any combination of muscles in the body really)

Thanks in advance for any insight at all!!!

EDIT: Spent the last few hours reading about this stuff and trying to recreate what Chris Bartley had done in the video. Here’s what I came up with: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hqGDEL-YIgV5QnSuLmMhG8MyDvVLo6aFLh0ceQid4Ns/pubhtml

Any ideas on how I can improve it?

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Pain measures fall into 2 categories:

Single-dimensional scales - These scales assess a single dimension of pain and, through patient self-reporting, measure only pain intensity; these scales are useful in acute pain when the etiology is clear; see the image below Faces Pain Rating Scale.
Faces Pain Rating Scale.

Multidimensional scales - These measure the intensity, nature, and location of pain, as well as, in some cases, the impact that pain is having on a patient’s activity or mood; multidimensional scales are useful in complex or persistent acute or chronic pain