Have children with asthma? Check out these apps!
Long before I had two kids and became obsessed with tablet technology, I marketed ethical pharmaceuticals and medical devices. It was an amazing learning experience. So when I was recently asked to review an asthma app, I was interested. Full disclosure – I’m not going tell you which asthma app approached me and I’m not going to state that it’s my preference. The better option for parents, in my opinion, is to find an app that works for you and your family.
Having worked on a couple of asthma drugs and although it’s been a while, I know the basics of asthma and how it is treated. Since my usual secondary review sources don’t review medical apps, I did what any parent would do and went to the App Store charts and looked through the top medical apps.
It’s a very different world out there with medical apps. My initial observations are:
1. Medical apps aren’t updated very often (which is a must for me because an app is piece of software – you have to maintain it).
2. Not many people post reviews on medical apps (which makes me wonder if they are too hard to use).
3. They are very technical (meaning you have to be knowledgeable about the data you are collecting).
I am very lucky in that neither of my boys have asthma. It’s a hard condition to manage, particularly for kids because they are active and the condition can be worst during the summertime. I downloaded numerous asthma apps and have provided a list below of the ones that I thought were relevant. The majority of them are used with a smartphone, preferably an iPhone. The logic being that a child or parent would have their smartphone with them to best manage or track their asthma.
1. Sailor The Puffer Fish: PUFF’D – An interactive asthma game for kids
2. iAsthma in Control – Kid-friendly asthma tracking app
3. AsthmaSense – Asthma tracking app
4. AsthmaCheck – Asthma tracking app
5. AsthmaTrack – Asthma tracking app
6. AsthmaApp – This asthma tracking app is in German and I don’t think it is available in English. The functionality and user interface are intuitive, even with the language barrier.
One final point, which I find interesting, is how international these apps are. PUFF’d was created in New Zealand and AsthmaApp was developed in Germany.
I would love to learn about any other asthma apps out there and your experiences with them. Tweet me @weebootMom or email me at weeboot@gmail.com
