I received the below press release from WebMD. It would be neat to try out this app, but I haven't had the time (I've been awful about time management lately). In fact, I haven't had time to do a blog post in a while (sorry) which is why I'm simply copying and pasting the press release below.
Just a quick pain update. I haven't been running as much (time management - see above) and my headaches and especially migraines have been a lot worse. I went to the mountains over fall break and while I got a lot of exercise, I also got an awful migraine and had headaches the rest of the time. I'm thinking the altitude change may have affected my head. Also I didn't bring my night mouth guard so that probably didn't help. So I've been trying to take it easy since then and so far this week hasn't been too bad. My lower back hurts more than anything...so now I'm afraid to try running again. Not sure what that's about.
Oh and one more thing - I just noticed this blog has 100 followers - WOW! Thank you ALL for thinking my ramblings are somewhat interesting. I really hope that I've helped some of my readers over the *five* (again - WOW) years I've been blogging!
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Just a quick pain update. I haven't been running as much (time management - see above) and my headaches and especially migraines have been a lot worse. I went to the mountains over fall break and while I got a lot of exercise, I also got an awful migraine and had headaches the rest of the time. I'm thinking the altitude change may have affected my head. Also I didn't bring my night mouth guard so that probably didn't help. So I've been trying to take it easy since then and so far this week hasn't been too bad. My lower back hurts more than anything...so now I'm afraid to try running again. Not sure what that's about.
Oh and one more thing - I just noticed this blog has 100 followers - WOW! Thank you ALL for thinking my ramblings are somewhat interesting. I really hope that I've helped some of my readers over the *five* (again - WOW) years I've been blogging!
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WebMD Launches Unique New Mobile App for Those Living With Chronic Pain
WebMD Pain Coach™ engages patients across seven pain conditions to provide helpful answers and motivation
New York, NY - WebMD Health Corp. (NASDAQ: WBMD), the leading
source of health information, today announced its new WebMD Pain Coach™
for iPhone, a unique free mobile application for consumers and patients
living with chronic pain. As the leader in mobile health, WebMD provides
trusted health information anytime and anywhere with its mobile web and
applications for consumers and physicians. The new WebMD Pain Coach™
app builds on WebMD’s market-leading mobile applications through a
holistic approach that helps users create a balanced lifestyle.
WebMD’s
new app is a mobile companion to coach consumers through daily health
and wellness choices so that they can better manage their pain while
living a healthy life. It offers patients a personalized experience by
delivering daily physician-reviewed tips about managing their specific
condition(s) to their mobile device. With the app, WebMD helps consumers
take control of their lifestyle choices by enabling them to easily
review their pain patterns so they can understand triggers, set goals
and share progress with their physician.
“WebMD
recognized that many who suffer from chronic pain have more than one
condition, which is why WebMD’s Pain Coach™ uniquely enables tracking of
multiple chronic pain conditions all within one app. With WebMD’s Pain
Coach™, users can track and view symptoms, triggers, treatments and
goals on a daily basis, further monitoring progression,” said Dr.
Michael Smith, Chief Medical Editor at WebMD. “WebMD Pain Coach™ is also
a portable reminder and checklist for patients to reference when
communicating with their physician at the point of care, enhancing
patient-physician communications to help with health decisions and
treatments.”
According
to the Institute of Medicine of The National Academies, there are over
100 million Americans suffering from a chronic pain condition. WebMD
Pain Coach™ provides tools and resources to help those suffering from
chronic back pain, neck pain, nerve pain, fibromyalgia, migraine,
osteoarthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis, with customized information
based on their condition, treatments and lifestyle.
In
recent studies conducted by WebMD of its leading consumer and physician
communities, both groups expressed interest in the ability to track
pain through a mobile device to enhance patient-physician communication
at the point of care. In a recent survey* of chronic pain sufferers who
visit WebMD through a mobile device, 89 percent would use a mobile pain
diary through a smartphone app at least weekly and 70 percent would be
likely to use an app which featured relevant WebMD condition-focused
content to help better manage and track pain.
Other key survey findings include:
- Approximately 40 percent of respondents felt very strongly that this type of application would improve discussions with their physician.
- Over 50 percent of respondents suffer from frequent or recurring pain and are actively treating their pain with guidance from a physician; 83 percent of respondents see a doctor; 50 percent treat pain with Rx medication; and 38 percent treat pain with OTC medication.
The physician survey** also found:
- 92 percent of respondents would prefer if their patients had an easy way to track symptoms between visits, with 65 percent noting a mobile app could allow their patients to easily track their chronic pain intensity and share that information during visits.
Similar
to WebMD’s other leading health apps, WebMD Pain Coach™ provides
contextual advertisements for the engaged user with ad experiences that
are woven into the fabric of the app.
WebMD Pain Coach™ features include:
Journal:
The journal puts consumers in control of their lifestyle choices,
allowing them to see patterns, discover potential triggers, show
tangible progress through goal setting, share progress with their
physician, and track to gain a measure of control.
Goals:
Consumers are able to browse and select physician-reviewed goals from
five lifestyle categories related to their pain condition(s): food,
rest, exercise, mood, and treatments, or create their own goals. Each
related tip can be viewed before selecting a goal, and the goal duration
can be set from one day to one year.
Tips: Tips
are delivered daily and provide consumers with a highly personalized
experience to help them meet their specific goals. Tips are categorized
by food, rest, exercise, mood and treatments and are physician-reviewed.
Library:
The Library contains WebMD’s trusted physician-reviewed content
relevant to the patient’s condition(s) and pain management. The Library
contains hundreds of articles, videos, slideshows and quizzes, all
organized within categories including: Living Better with Chronic Pain,
Pain Management Techniques, Treatment & Care for Chronic Pain, and
Understanding Chronic Pain.
WebMD Pain Coach™ is available for free from the App Store for the iPhone and iPod Touch or at http://itunes.com/apps/
*WebMD
Mobile Survey Methodology: 531 people responded to a WebMD survey
targeting chronic pain users conducted in May-June 2011 on WebMD’s
mobile web and iPhone/Android apps.
**Medscape
Survey Methodology: 131 physicians responded to a Medscape Poll
targeting physicians who treat patients suffering from chronic pain. It
was conducted from June 3-June 11, 2012, online in Medscape’s Physician
Connect Community.
About WebMD
WebMD
Health Corp. (NASDAQ: WBMD) is the leading provider of health
information services, serving consumers, physicians, healthcare
professionals, employers, and health plans through our public and
private online portals, mobile platforms and health-focused
publications.
The WebMD Health Network includes WebMD Health, Medscape, MedicineNet, emedicineHealth, RxList, theheart.org, Medscape Education and other owned WebMD sites.
