15 Mobile Apps For Better Health
From helping you monitor your condition to making suggestions for improving it, today's smartphones can become valuable healthcare partners -- with the right apps. The iPhone App Store, the Android Market and the BlackBerry App World are chock full of applications that can help keep you in the pink. The Health, Wellness, and Fitness categories in the various mobile app stores are full of applications that promise to help keep you healthy. Some of them are backed by major pharmaceutical firms, wh
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This free iPhone app from pharmaceutical giant Merck is intended to help migraine sufferers (numbering 28 million in the U.S., according to Merck) keep track of when and where their headaches occur, how severe they are, and if any treatment worked. The data can help patients identify the triggers for their attacks and provides a basis for discussing treatment plans and options with their doctors. The app also includes general information about migraines.
In compiling these 15 mobile apps, we steered clear of apps that were geared more toward exercise and fitness than general wellness. You can find dozens if not hundreds of apps to show you how to do pushups correctly, let you track how much time you spent at the gym, and so on. But which one(s) are best depends on your own personal goals and preferred activities. We did include one, though, because it brought something extra to the party.
Similarly, we skipped most of the many, many calorie counting apps on the market. Again, we looked for ones that supplied more than just a diary and calculator. We also stayed away from the really woo-woo "wellness" apps. Oh, and the app that claims to cure acne by making your phone's screen display a red or blue light? It's an intentional joke -- check the company name.
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Based on information from the American Heart Association, this iPhone app ($3.99) features instructions, complete with illustrations and videos, on how to deal with medical emergencies. The app comes with 12 quick reference guides to common emergencies as well specific information on child and infant CPR and choking treatment. It also provides a place for saving you and your family's medical and emergency contact information.
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It's hard to stay healthy when you don't get a good night's sleep -- a particular issue for business travelers -- and that's the problem this app aims to solve. The $1.99 package of "isochronic and binaural entertainment" includes ambient electronica, three noise tracks (as in white noise, not as in noise pop), and rain and waves soundtracks. It features sleep and deep sleep programs, as well as napping options. And just so you don't sleep through your meeting, it also functions as an alarm clock.
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Keeping track of calories is key to any weight-loss or fitness plan, but few of us eat meals that are made up of discrete amounts of separate ingredients (how much mozzarella was in the portion of lasagna, do you think?) or have time to look at the nutrition label to figure out what we just consumed. With MyFitnessPal for the iPhone (free), you just enter the name of the food ("Stouffer's Lasagne with Meat and Sauce"), and the app records not just the calories but the fat, protein, sodium, and so on. You can also enter exercises for calorie "credits," and the app syncs with your MyFitnessPal.com account to let you enter data either on the web or on your phone.
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This free Android app (we mean the one from the Health Team) offers quick access to first aid information and warns you against misinformation. The basis of the app is a hierarchical organization: you start with "effects of heat and cold," for example, and then choose from burns and scalds, heatstroke, frostbite, sunburn, and more. Click on the appropriate condition, and you get recommended treatments and general guidelines for how to manage the patient. The app also has a "myths" feature that will tell you some things *not* to do -- for example, rubbing butter on a burn doesn't really help.
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Like MyFitnessPal for the iPhone, this Android app ($4.99) has its own database of foods and exercises and their calorie equivalents. You can also add your own custom foods and meals to supplement what's in the database. You set your profile and dietary goal and record your eating and exercise habits to track how well you're doing -- you can also track body fat, blood pressure, sleep, and other wellness factors.
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This free app generates sounds to help you sleep and works as an alarm clock to wake you up. The soundscapes also come with matching visuals to provide a complete, relaxing A/V experience. Scenes include rain, waves, white noise, a lightning storm, and more; and additional scenes, such as forest or city environments, are available at 99 cents each. (Don't laugh -- some people can't sleep without city noises).
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You may have a record of emergency phone numbers where you live, but what about when you travel? That's where Emergency Dial! (99 cents) comes in. this Android app uses GPS to figure out where you are and gives you one-button dialing for the local emergency services. The app contains contact information for services in more than 130 countries, so you'll have to travel far for it not to be of use.
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One of the happiest health conditions (in most cases) is pregnancy, and Baby Bump ($2.99 for Android and the iPhone) can help feed that happiness. The app provides week-by-week info on fetal development, plus a journal and various tools (e.g., a kick counter) to keep track of what's going on. It even lets you send updates on the latest developments via Twitter and Facebook.
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Diabetics need to keep a close eye on their glucose levels, both to be aware of fluctuations during the day and to have a record to review with their doctors. The Glucose Tracker BlackBerry app ($4.99) gives you an easy way to maintain a log of your glucose readings and view the results as a graph for the week, month, or quarter. You can also record when you took any medications.
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This BlackBerry app ($2.99) is the smartphone equivalent of a MedicAlert bracelet: a place to store your personal and medical information so a paramedic or doctor can quickly find out what they need to know. In addition to your medical history and medications, you can also store your emergency contacts. What's more, Emergency Info associates each contact name with a Call button, so anyone tending to you can easily get in touch with whomever they need.
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Ever wonder what's in those pills your doctor prescribed? Or, perhaps even more relevant, what all those pills your aging parents take are for? Family Drug Guide ($4.99) for the BlackBerry, iPhone and Android devices draws on Consumer Reports Health and the American Society for Health-System Pharmacists to provide information about indications, side effects, and so on for both prescription and over-the-counter drugs. It also lets you bookmark the drugs you and your family are taking.
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This calorie counter lets you enter your age, height, weight and activity level, and set your own goal for weight loss or maintenance. It will then set a daily calorie intake and, equipped with a database of over 525,000 food and restaurant items, give you an easy way to keep track of what you eat. Like any good calorie tracker, it also lets you enter exercises for "credit." The app costs $2.99, but it syncs in both directions with a free account at Livestrong.com.
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Period Calendar Deluxe ($3.99) for the BlackBerry is not just a way of keeping track of that time of the month, it can also help in pregnancy planning. The app displays a calendar of projected period dates, but also probable fertile dates. (It will even tell you what your baby's Zodiac sign would be if you conceived on those dates.) You can also add notes for any day on the calendar, whether it has anything to do with your cycle or not.
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Like sufferers from other chronic conditions, people with asthma can benefit from tracking their symptoms, triggers, medication schedule and effectiveness, and Peak Flow Numbers. With this app, the results are displayed in graphs that make it easy to get an overview of when and how bad the attacks are. The iPhone app ($4.99) also lets you upload your data to Google Health to share with your doctor.
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Like sufferers from other chronic conditions, people with asthma can benefit from tracking their symptoms, triggers, medication schedule and effectiveness, and Peak Flow Numbers. With this app, the results are displayed in graphs that make it easy to get an overview of when and how bad the attacks are. The iPhone app ($4.99) also lets you upload your data to Google Health to share with your doctor.
SEE ALSO:
This free iPhone app from pharmaceutical giant Merck is intended to help migraine sufferers (numbering 28 million in the U.S., according to Merck) keep track of when and where their headaches occur, how severe they are, and if any treatment worked. The data can help patients identify the triggers for their attacks and provides a basis for discussing treatment plans and options with their doctors. The app also includes general information about migraines.
In compiling these 15 mobile apps, we steered clear of apps that were geared more toward exercise and fitness than general wellness. You can find dozens if not hundreds of apps to show you how to do pushups correctly, let you track how much time you spent at the gym, and so on. But which one(s) are best depends on your own personal goals and preferred activities. We did include one, though, because it brought something extra to the party.
Similarly, we skipped most of the many, many calorie counting apps on the market. Again, we looked for ones that supplied more than just a diary and calculator. We also stayed away from the really woo-woo "wellness" apps. Oh, and the app that claims to cure acne by making your phone's screen display a red or blue light? It's an intentional joke -- check the company name.
SEE ALSO: Healthcare Innovators Zeo Personal Sleep Coach RFID In Healthcare
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