Smartphone apps for symptom management

I often hear my son say, “There’s an app for that!” He reminds me that you can find an app for almost everything ─ locating restaurants, banking, grocery stores, games, fitness programs ─ and that’s only scratching the surface! We’ve found several MS-specific and general health apps that may be helpful as you go about your day-to-day life with MS and its symptoms. All the apps featured are free of charge and can be found in your smartphone or tablet’s app store.

When I began my work with the MS Society, we discussed apps for people living with multiple sclerosis in less concrete terms than we do today. Less than four short years later, there are now many apps to help manage daily life with MS. Some apps inform people living with MS about how to manage symptoms while others allow you to track sleep, bladder activity and mobility.

What I think is particularly innovative is that these tracking apps can be shared with your healthcare team to assess whether further symptom management is required. Tracking apps are a neat way to harness technology to do something that you may already have been doing, but in a more efficient manner.

Technology is amazing, and things change so quickly. So many developers are creating new apps every day, so I do recommend researching an app and reading any available reviews to ensure the app will provide the solution you’re looking for.

Do you use any apps to manage MS? Please let us know in the comments below.