# Mobile Applications for Epilepsy: Where Are We? Where Should We Go? A Systematic Review
### Mobile Health in Epilepsy  
In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, several works have addressed the importance of telemedicine in epilepsy, to ensure the communication between patients and doctors. Even though many interesting solutions have been developed so far, the main communication channel reported was telephone calls [14], which despite its ease of use, provides limited interaction and is intensive in human resources.  
On another note, the patient-doctor communication is mainly focused on the medical appointment, which can be insufficient to extract conclusions, since the patient might not recall every episode or might have some difficulties in properly describing all relevant information. The follow-up of PWE should be more frequent, but without increasing doctors' overload. In this sense, mobile applications can be an important ally to close the gap between the patients' daily experiences and the doctors' clinical judgement. However, considering the multitude of options available, each with their one purpose and features, an updated systematic evaluation of such tools is missing to provide a clear answer to this topic.  
Previous works have conducted systematic reviews of state-of-the-art technology for epilepsy management. [PERSON] and colleagues [15] performed an in-depth review of mobile apps for epilepsy self-management, where the apps were evaluated with MARS. This study, published in 2018, was conducted in 2016. In 2020, [PERSON] and coworkers [16] published a review on clinical decision support systems for epileptology, in which more apps and other solutions are described, but without the MARS evaluation. More recently, [PERSON] and colleagues [17] performed a systematic review of M-health applications used in epilepsy. This study did use MARS; however, the evaluation was performed by a single rater, and only apps from the Google Play store that were available in English were considered.  
Considering the rapidly evolving nature of mobile technology [18] and the exponential growth of available apps (with an average number of new app releases per month of more than 70,000 and 30,000 for Google Play and Apple App Store, respectively [19, 20]), regular updates on the currently available solutions are crucial. Hence, the present work will provide a review on epilepsy management apps, in light of the most recent technologies and their rigorous evaluation.  
Building upon the state of the art, this work also proposes key features that should be present in epilepsy management apps, and what considerations must be taken when envisioning such solutions. The acquired knowledge and thoughts are compiled into a proposal of key aspects to be considered when designing this kind of mobile app, to guide developers into the patients' needs and expectations.  
We performed a systematic review following PRISMA methodology [21]. In the methodology section, we start by identifying the research questions (A), the search strategy (B), and the eligibility criteria (C). Herein, we also describe the contents in mobile apps for epilepsy management (D); we conclude with details over the evaluation performed (E) and subsequent analysis (F). The results section is initiated with the PRISMA scheme selection (A), followed by the raters description (B). We performed this analysis starting with content features (C), then the MARS rating assessment (D). In the discussion section, we address the principal findings (A) and the main aspects to include in mobile app development (B), followed by the limitations of our study (C) and comparison with prior work (D). In the conclusion section, we round up the final remarks and main statements disclosed in this review.