A black version of an emblem used by iOS app developers to indicate that something is available for download from the App Store. It has a image of an iPhone and reads “Available on the App Store”. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Keeping track of daily events…

Do you live with a chronic or acute disease? Has your primary care physician ever asked you to keep track of your day to day activities? If so, you have probably set about creating a daily calendar of what time you awoke, what you weighed in the morning and evening, what time you ate your meals, what medicines you took and what time you took them, what activities you performed (regular exercise, etc), how tired you became during the course of the day, how your blood pressure fluctuated throughout the day, maybe even what your blood sugar levels were before and after eating, how much fluid you took in, etc.

If you are a new parent, then perhaps your pediatrician counseled you to keep track of caring for your newborn including feeding, nursing, diapers, sleep, mood, activities, and medicine. There is no doubt that keeping such copious records can be exhausting and before you know it your whole day becomes an accounting nightmare and with any luck you don’t misplace your paperwork or worse yet, someone doesn’t spill a liquid on your spreadsheet!

Now what if your diagnosis were Bipolar I disorder and your physician(s) consistently asked you about such things as your sleep patterns, eating habits, daily routines, blood pressure and compliance with medication dosage?

Guess what! There’s an APP for that…

Meet Kimberly Knox. Ms. Knox is a Bipolar I patient and during a recent hospitalization in a psychiatric hospital she was considering her diagnosis and she wanted to learn more about how her mind works. So she decided to start keeping track of her moods, much like a parent might keep track of a newborn’s day to day activities. She started to write down on a spreadsheet such things as her sleeping patterns, her medication adherence, her blood pressure and her moods. She soon learned that keeping track took a lot of energy and time, so she considered that there had to be an easier way. She found it…

According to a press release covered on NBCNEWS.com, Ms. Knox decided to visit her local Apple Store. The Apple Store employees referred her to a mobile app developer, Ditty Labs, and a month later Mood Watch was a reality.

More about Mood Watch

You can learn all about Mood Watch by visiting the Mood Watch website, but what you need to know is:

“Mood Watch is a new mobile application, available on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, that empowers people who suffer from mood disorders like anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder and more with tools that can help them live happier and more productive lives.”

As Ms. Knox explains, her mood app tracks: feeling and sleep, blood pressure, anxiety level, mood, calmness, focus/Mindfulness, energy level, customization, medications and supplements, report, and daily notes. It helps the patients to better understand their disorder and also aids in discussions with their physician and/or therapist. The user can create reports, print the reports, or email the reports to their personal physician.

You can purchase the Mood Watch app for $.99 through the App Store or Android Marketplace. Additionally, the Mood Watch app has been endorsed by the International Bipolar Foundation.  The next goal is to translate Mood Watch into six more languages.

See how Mood Watch works by watching this short video

If you are having trouble viewing the video, you can see it here.

Using APPs can be very helpful…

We hope you will let us know what you think of this APP.  How many APPs do you use throughout your day, if any?  We know some can be very useful; while researching for this blog post we also learned that there are a number of APPs for tracking your newborn’s daily activities!