Reviewing mobile applications that can improve efficiency, productivity and client care. This blog also fosters communication between psychologists and application developers.
PTSD Coach has been originally created by the United-State's National center for PTSD (for US veterans). The Canadian Veterans Affairs has updated de PTSD Coach app for Canadian usage. References are made for Canadians, and most importantly, it is now available in French under the name ESPT Coach Canada.
If the estimated prevalence of lifetime PTSD is 6.8% in the general population. This means that the app could now offer help up too almost 15 million worldwide French speaking person suffering from PTSD once in there life. That is great news!
Bipolar disorder can create severe handicaps and impacts in a patient life. Since bipolar disorder affects many rhythms like sleep, activity level, thought process or mood regulation, the traditional therapy works on regulating life on a daily basis. Having a healthy portion of social activity, physical activity, sleep, or eating regularly are some of the ways to cope with bipolar disorder. Improving the regularity of rhythms has been a recognize tool, out of many, to treat bipolar disorder. Now comes the Moodrhythm app which is a traditional bipolar therapy tool but with some real novel advantages.
The usual problem with daily paper diary of activity is that most of the time it will be incomplete. Forgotten here or there, to busy to do it, whatever the reason, the data recover from it will only be partial. Using an app to input the data would be more easy since it's more mobile then a paper diary. Still, patient could forget to enter the information in the app. That's where Moodrhythm makes a difference. It utilizes the on-board sensors of a phone to gather information on the patient's activity level . The sensors are: microphone, light sensors and accelerometer. It helps to monitor sleep, mood, physical and social levels. To this, will be added the traditional daily diary. Standard activities are built in to it, but you can add your own.
Has security goes, the app doesn't record or listen in conversations. It actually recognize variations in pitch, volume, speaking rate and other characteristics to measure emotional states level of the patient. The accelerometer and light sensor combined will give information on sleep, rest or physical activity. All that data can then be put to use for therapy by a mental health professional. This app has been developed by Cornell University. It's inventors have won the prestigious $100,000 Heritage Open mHealth Challenge for it. Available on android and iPhone for free. It was impossible to install on our android phones. Certain bugs are in need of fixing.
For more information visit the Moodrhythm web site [here]
So you're reading your patient medical file... It's writen that your patient is " CCF, COPD, HTN with IDD that contributed to a CVI. He is now taking Synthroid TID and Ativan IM PRN. He is now T.S.T.H. " How will you establish the correct treatment plan if you can not understand the diagnostic? The BBC repported that 5% of medical errors were related to abbreviations in the file that were not understood. The inter-juge accor for an abbreviation in non-medical health professional is only 30 to 63%. Enough to create a lot of confusion and mistakes. This App will help you understand the medical abbreviations in English, but also their French, Spanish, German, Polish, Russian and Dutch version.
For more information visit the Medical abbreviations website [here]
Being neuropsychologist or psychologist you will have, at one point or another, to encourage your patients to learn new materiel. A traumatic brain injury patient might have to learn the names and faces of its therapists, but could not. A stroke patient might have aphasia or visual agnosia, and he would need cognitive remediation. Your patient with relational problems might need to remind himself of his maladaptive schema triggers. The scenarios are endless, has there are subjects to be learned.
What Anki does for you and your patient is to give you a learning platform based on flashcards. On one side you have the question, and on the other the answer. Everything is customizable to your liking. You can use text, picture, audio or even video on all flashcards. You simply use the medium that is appropriated to the materiel that you want to learn. Now, where Anki becomes a real innovative tool is in its capability to create statistics and different frequency of repetitions based on your learning curve. Each time you answer, Anki will ask you to what level was it easy for you to get the it right. According to that, the program will plot a recurrence frequency that will suit your needs. You will also be able to distribute that frequency on a timeframe of your choice. That is to say that you can learn intensively for a week or in your spare time over the next month, it’s your choice to make.
Anki is an open source program. It can be used on a PC, Mac, Android, IPhone, Linux or web based interface. All those platforms can be linked together by cloud computing. So the learning you did on your Android phone, while you were on the move, can be continued at home on your PC. The only drawback for this App is that you cannot lock the access to the program (although you can lock your access to your account). Many decks already exist and they are freely available. You can also make and publish your own deck. In the end not only your patients will use it, but probably you will also.
For more information visit the ANKI web site [here]
PTSD Coach has been originally created by the United-State's National center for PTSD (for US veterans). The Canadian Veterans Affairs has updated de PTSD Coach app for Canadian usage. References are made for Canadians, and most importantly, it is now available in French under the name ESPT Coach Canada. 
