Pain is one of the most common reasons for medical visits. However, as pain is extremely subjective, it’s difficult to accurately evaluate it and describe it to our doctor. Still, doctors rely on this information to determine the best treatment for a condition and therefore it is important, especially for patients suffering from chronic diseases, to keep track of their pain. Pain tracking is another aspect of healthcare where mobile apps are emerging to help their users by providing new tools that make monitoring less of a hassle. If you are curious about what can be done to make it easier to monitor pain, in this post, we will discuss some of the existing pain tracking applications and help you find the one best suited to your needs.
My pain diary
My Pain Diary is an iOS app that was developed to help patients with chronic pain keep a detailed record of all the information they need to share with their care professionals in order to better manage their pain and follow the evolution of their condition. What makes it especially useful is that it allows users to not only log the basic information (such as the location, type or trigger of the pain) but also to upload photo attachments. In addition, the application uses geo-localization to retrieve weather feeds, as in many cases variations of the weather can play a significant role in a person’s pain or mood. By collecting all these kinds of data in one dashboard, patients are able to compare their symptoms, see which factors affect their pain and send reports to their doctor.
Manage My Pain
Another application that allows you to effectively describe your pain is Manage My Pain, an Android app. What distinguishes this app is that its pain description options are based on the American Pain Foundation‘s “LOCATES” methodology and therefore can be easily evaluated by medical professionals. For each record, the user is asked to describe: the Location of the pain, Other associated symptoms, the Character of the pain, any Aggravating and alleviating factors that may exist, the Time and duration of the pain, the Environment where the pain occurs, and the Severity of the pain using a 0-to-10 scale.
Chronic Pain Tracker
This last application is Chronic Pain Tracker for iOS. As one of the most comprehensive applications in the market, it can certainly help anyone suffering from chronic pain in their record keeping. The most significant feature of this app, which differentiates it from the others, is the pain painter. In order to complete each record, the user can create a “pain drawing” by tapping on the anatomical body and then marking the exact location and intensity of the pain.
