Medical Apps for the iPhone

Medical Apps for the iPhone
By DAVID POGUE

Last week, I spoke at the TED MED conference. It's like the
much higher-profile TED conference (you can read about it
on my blog
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/ted/
), but under different management and, of course, dedicated
to healthcare topics.

My assignment was to speak for 18 minutes (the standard talk
length) about medical apps for the Apple iPhone. Sounds
easy, right? Only one problem: there are about 7,000
medical apps.

After a lot of time reading "best medical apps" stories
online, asking Twitter users for their suggestions and
reading online reviews, I finally boiled the list down to
about 50 promising apps. I tried them out and further
winnowed the list to a bunch that I ultimately demo'ed in
my talk. Eventually, the video of the talk will be posted
at ted.com/talks, but in the meantime, here's what I
covered.

(I haven't really given them full-blown testing, so read the
online reviews before you spend good money on them. Except
for the free ones--you've got nothing to lose!)

FOR PATIENTS:

* JetLag RX. You input your travel destination, your usual
bedtime and so on. The app recommends a schedule for
eating, sleeping and exposure to light in order to land in
the new time zone with a minimum of jet lag, based on
modern jet-lag research. (Not yet available in the iTunes
app store; $10)

* Uhear. Clever, self-administered test for hearing loss.
(Free)

* SoundAMP. Turns the iPhone into a hearing aid. Amplifies
and processes voices to make them clearer. Even has a
30-second replay button that can save you from having to
say "What?" so often. ($9.99)

* ProLoQuo2Go. I read about this one in The Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/15/technology/15speech.html
It's a speech synthesizer for patients who have trouble
speaking; you tap big fat icons to put sentences together.
You can also save common phrases into a special Quick Set.
For an app, the price is shockingly high. But its
competition is an $8,000 PC-based system that's decidedly
not mobile. ($190)

* Period Tracker, Period Tracker Companion. The title says
it all. This little app helps women predict the onset of
each month's period, and wirelessly syncs with the man's
app (Companion) so that he can know exactly when "to be a
little extra nice and special." (Lite version, free;
Companion, $1)

* Lose It! This beautifully designed weight-loss app has an
astounding number of followers, if the outpouring of
enthusiasm on Twitter is any indication. You tap to record
everything you eat. It's actually kind of fun, because the
program contains every food item you can imagine, including
brand-name packaged food and restaurant-chain menus. For
each one, the app lists the complete nutritional
information.

You also indicate what exercise you get each day, using a
similarly complete list of activities. Finally, you tap in
your weight each day. Probably because the app focuses you
so well on staying true to your goals, its fans say it
truly works. (Free)

* Eyeglasses. As an over-40-year-old, I've become addicted
to this app. It simply turns the iPhone 3GS into a
magnifying glass. Hold it in front of some tiny type--on a
menu, a receipt, a ticket, a medicine bottle--and
Eyeglasses, after a moment of autofocusing, shows you a
magnified version of it on the screen. Keeping your hand
steady is tough, and the 6X and 8X images sort of fall
apart--but the 2X and 4X views have saved me more than
once. ($3)

* Retina. It's for color-blind people like me. You hold it
in front of something--clothes in your closet, for
example--and it tells you by name what color you're seeing.
I love this one more for the concept than the execution; it
says black is "too dark" and white is "too bright," for
example, and it really needs more differentiation between
various *degrees* of red or whatever. Tinted room light (of
the sort that requires white-balance adjustments on a
camera) can flummox it. But as an early example of an
"augmented reality" app, it's very exciting. (Free)

FOR DOCTORS:

* OsiriX. An amazing viewer of medical images (X-rays, scans
of all sort). Drag with one finger to adjust brightness or
contrast. Zoom in, rotate. Special modes let you measure
some element (tumor, fracture, etc.) with either a circle
or a line that you draw with two fingers. Syncs with a
special image server at the hospital. ($20)

* Anatomy Lab. A virtual cadaver. Drag up or down with two
fingers to peel away (or restore) another thin layer of the
photo, down to the organs and beyond. Or choose from a list
of body parts and jump directly, revealing that exposed
part. Grisly and amazing. ($10)

* Epocrates. Another Twitter favorite. Like an electronic
version of the huge Physicians' Desk Reference book. Tap in
two or more medications, and it warns you of cross side
effects. Tap in the description of a pill (hexagonal,
yellow, inscription), and it tells you what the medicine
is, and all about it. This much, plus a medical calculator
(body mass, etc.) is free; paid versions offer even more
instant information for the physician. (Free)

* AirStrip OB. Lets an obstetrician monitor a patient's
status, right down to the baby's heartbeat, from elsewhere
in the hospital (or the town). Requires that the AirStrip
fetal software suite be installed at the hospital. A good
hint at the kind of remote monitoring that may be possible.
(Free)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/technology/personaltech/05pogue-email.html?8cir&emc=cir