More than one million fitness and wellness apps are available in the Apple and Google app stores, with more added daily. With so many fitness-related apps to choose from, how do you know which ones you want to use and how they could improve your fitness?
First, think about what type of application you are looking for. In general, you can divide fitness-related apps into 4 broad categories: general fitness and wellness apps, apps that help you manage your general fitness or an express chronic illness, telefitness and telemedicine apps, and the last category, apps virtual healing, which are approved by the FDA for the treatment of specific conditions.
Matrix “And now we have an explosion of new equipment to help us measure and improve our physical behaviors. The first Fitbit was only introduced in 2009, and wearable devices are now ubiquitous and can measure each and every facet of our activity, physiology, and even intellectual fitness to the fullest.
The vast array of general health and wellness apps available include nutritional apps like LoseIt and MyFitnessPal that help you track your eating and exercise habits and lose weight, fitness apps like Strava, Fitplan, and Aaptiv, sleep trackers like Sleep Cycle, and mental wellness apps like Calm, Headspace, and Happify.
“As wearable devices evolve to be commonly used by a maximum of people, many wellness apps like these can communicate with your wearable devices,” says fitness futurist Rafael Grossman, MD, a surgeon at Portsmouth Regional Hospital in New Hampshire, who performed the first Google Glass surgery. Array “And the knowledge from those third-party apps can be seamlessly consolidated into your Apple Health Kit or Google Fit, giving you a complete report on your fitness and activity, all in one place. “
These apps offer general fitness monitoring tools, such as medication trackers and reminders, as well as disease-specific features, such as tracking the blood sugar of other people with diabetes or reporting diabetes. Occasions of bleeding for people with hemophilia. Many of those apps can also be set up to share data directly with your doctor.
If you’re looking for an app to help you manage a chronic illness, start by asking the doctor treating you for that illness. Another good source of recommendations would be to turn to national organizations that advocate for others with your condition. For example, My MS Manager is a free cell phone app created through the Multiple Sclerosis Association of America (MSAA) that allows users to track their MS symptoms, create reports for healthcare professionals, and get reminders. of medications.
If you get care at a giant hospital or medical center, they may have one or more apps to manage your visits, prescriptions, and electronic fitness logs. Many fitness insurance corporations also provide apps to patients enrolled in one of their plans that allow them to manage their fitness benefits with just a few clicks and swipes, and even inspire the habit of fitness by offering rewards like gift cards.
Many of these apps can also integrate with wearable technologies like a Fitbit or Apple Watch, or with other home digital health devices like blood pressure cuffs, smart thermometers, and smart scales. “Apps are now blending with home diagnostic platforms,” Kraft says. “In part due to the need for more remote health care visits during to COVID, people have become more comfortable with using things like connected blood pressure cuffs and pulse oximeters. The big value is helping you intelligently manage disease processes, especially chronic ones.”
Apps like Doctor on Demand, Teladoc, GoodRx Care, Talkspace, and Zocdoc can connect you directly with a doctor for a virtual appointment or help you seek out and book local health care providers for in-person visits. More and more hospitals and health systems, like the Mayo Clinic and the Cleveland Clinic, are also including the ability to participate in virtual visits in their own apps.
“The pandemic dramatically accelerated the use of virtual visits, and I don’t think we’re ever going to go back to pre-pandemic levels of in-person health care visits, as patients and physicians are discovering the compelling convenience and efficacy,” Kraft says. “Even before virtual Zoom or FaceTime with clinicians, we’ve had ever-smarter chatbots that can help discern symptoms and triage problems via apps like these effectively at lower cost.”
In 2017, the FDA approved the first in a series of new virtual therapies for treating disease, a program called Pear Therapeutics’ reSET, which uses cellular testing and interventions to treat substance use disorders. Array has been followed by more than two hundred others to date. , adding BlueStar, a personalized workout app that lowers blood sugar levels in adults living with type 1 or type 2 diabetes, and Kaia Health, a fitness treatment app featured in test clinics aimed at specifically reducing pain, anxiety, tension, and depression. in other people who suffer from musculoskeletal pain.
“We now live in an era where hardware and software have evolved into an ecosystem, with apps, smartphones, wearable devices and artificial intelligence algorithms,” says Grossmann. “This gives us greater feedback and more personalized recommendations for habit adjustments that make medical sense and can produce genuine improvements in fitness. ” »
Kraft predicts that soon, your doctor may prescribe an app rather than, or in addition to, a new medication or another type of treatment. “It’s a golden age for these digital solutions,” he says. “There are so many options available to help you optimize your physical and mental wellness, find diseases before they become significant, or manage complex diseases ranging from pneumonia to cancer.”
SOURCES:
JMIR mHealth uHealth: “Assessment of Mobile Health Apps Using Built-In Smartphone Sensors for Diagnosis and Treatment: Systematic Survey of Apps Listed in International Curated Health App Libraries.”
Daniel Kraft, MD, founder and president of Exponential Medicine.
Rafael Grossmann, MD, FACS, surgeon and health futurist, Portsmouth Regional Hospital, New Hampshire.
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