Alzheimer App Developer - What technologies and types of technology do you use to manage your disease?

[l2silver]

Thanks Hill, It's interesting the amount of detail that goes into managing supplements, but I guess that's where the bulk of the nutrition management goes. Also interesting to see so many Excel users. This is a technical crowd.

Out of curiosity, does anyone use any brain testing exercises like brainhq to test their cognition. Any reason why not?

[Stavia]

12silver, great discussion.
I work often 12 hours a day at high cognitive level and for cognitive enhancement I'm learning the piano and boxing and reading - I reckon as long as I am progressing in my piano (now grade 5-6 as I am just finishing my 3rd year) that's enough of an objective assessment. I'm using it as a marker.

[Magda]

Hello 12silver,

Welcome to the Forum! Great to have you here!
What a wonderful App idea!

I have been using "My fitness pal" to track my nutrition intake. I am not in love with this app, and I am looking to switch to "Chronometer" in the near future.
As far as the lab tests, I do extended annual lab work, and keep the results in the Excel spreadsheet.
I also do functional lab testing as needed, usually two, three times a year.
I am about to start tracking my glucose levels, min. twice a day - not really sure what will I do with the results. I will probably create an excel document for that.

I track my workouts: length, intensivity, min/max HR. burn calories - I use polar watch and an App.
I would like to start tracking my sleep.

That is a lot of data, and it would be really helpful to have it all organized and personalized in a simple way in one place!
Looking forward hearing more about your app!

Magda

[circular]

Hi, welcome! You might want to be aware that, if memory serves me, Dr. Bredesen was talking early on about designing an app for his prevention and treatment protocol. I think he'd already contracted with a company to do it. I haven't heard anything about that for a long time. If he's still pursuing it, you may want to find out how extensively his app can be customized beyond his protocol, if at all.

I use the Wunderlist app for my supplement list (notes why I take etc, which I also print and take to doctors as desired) and doctor list (keeps questions for upcoming appointments so I just open it up while with the doc). I also note which supplements are approved by ConsumerLab.

I very much want my last 10 years of labs in a spreadsheet but cannot ever find the time to do it. They're tossed in a folder. I've literally been considering paying a high school student to enter it after setting up the spreadsheet. An app that would graph the changes over different time periods would be cool.

I've used cronometer once in the past, tried headspace and fitbit etc. I find that personally I swing between enjoying tracking and hating it. When I enjoy it I'm fascinated and it engages my already analytical mind, but I find I'm much less mindful and connected to the whole so to speak because there's less room in my mind for a meditative space with all the data tracking checking and analyzing.

I don't see exercise as binary. I do like FitBit for helping me see what I'm accomplishing and giving me silly feedback to keep me going.

The most important to me is the labs.

I think for people like me an app like this should also track the amount of time one is completely unplugged and not tracking anything

[l2silver]

Thanks Circular and Magda, those are excellent insights.

[circular]

... to help patients or care givers manage their general health ...

Why not both, and anyone not a patient or caregiver who wants to forestall brain decline? You probably intend that.

Incidentally, having transitioned during my time on this forum from having never been an AD caregiver, to becoming one full-time, I have sometimes thought there may be a place for a really well done, comprehensive caregiver app. Caregivers have their own very complex set of needs. However, I suspect a good caregiver app would probably be a full-time job to keep all the necessary data up to date, if not require an office and staff?

[floramaria]

Out of curiosity, does anyone use any brain testing exercises like brainhq to test their cognition. Any reason why not?

I am using BrainHQ, and try for 90 minutes a week, though I rarely hit that level. I enjoy tracking my progress on their graphs, and feel motivated to do more when I notice that overall my performance has slipped a percentage point. Also interesting to see what areas I excel in and which ones are very difficult. My primary form of cognitive exercise, though, is learning a whole new vocabulary, both words and acronyms, in order to understand the Bredesen protocol and the posts on this website

Have used Cron-o-meter just a few times to get a picture of how my percentages of macronutrients is lining up with my personal goals.
Tracking steps on my iPhone since Stavia's lovely sister showed me how. (It had been doing that for years; i just never knew it.)
Insight timer (my favorite app) for meditation.

[l2silver]

@circular there's definitely a need for a app to manage the care givers health and wellness!

So, thinking about this app, it seems to break down into two general categories, interventions and results

Interventions (by time of day)
---
Nutrition - Meals & Supplements
Exercise (Physical and Brain)
Sleep
Meditation / Relaxation
Stress / Anxiety
---
Results
---
Labs for blood work
Cognitive tests, for level of impairment

I'm thinking about the perspective of this application, and I think it should be from the care giver, and not the self health perspective. There are already self health apps that basically cover all of the interventions, from fitbit to cronometer, insight timer and all the rest, and I don't think there's a need to add another competitor to those spaces.

(That being said, it seems that for nutrition apps at least, the goals are weight loss or blood/glucose management, and not changing blood chemistry to optimal composition for brain function. There might be a separate application here for more detailed nutrition and supplement consumption.)

So the app will be from a care giver perspective, almost as if a nurse had a chart in front of him everyday, and was checking off and making notes on each of the interventions. So for us, we're all care givers treating ourselves. And since there are so many self health solutions for the interventions already, I'm going to try and connect them to the app using getHealth.io

Does that seem reasonable?

[Stavia]

add cognitive enhancement activities to interventions.

You know, this will be an enormous asset. Im very excited!



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[circular]

@circular there's definitely a need for a app to manage the care givers health and wellness!

Hi, agreed. We may be talking past each other on this aspect. Sorry if I wasn't clear. I was talking about a caregiver app not for personal health of the caregiver but to assist with the myriad and complex tasks and information needed to take care of an Alzheimer's patient.

So the app will be from a care giver perspective, almost as if a nurse had a chart in front of him everyday, and was checking off and making notes on each of the interventions. So for us, we're all care givers treating ourselves. And since there are so many self health solutions for the interventions already, I'm going to try and connect them to the app using getHealth.io

But I wonder why you want to call it a caregiver's app. To reach all those people who'd like to prevent brain decline but who don't think of themselves as caregivers, I'd think you'd want to cast it as having a broader scope and then include 'caregivers' in the sense that people usually use the word. I see what you mean about caregivers needing to take care of their brain (and other) health, but the vast majority of the population doesn't think of self-care as caregiver care, and I'm thinking you'd do yourself a disservice to call it a caregiver app?

Have you considered putting it out there as something more along the lines of a self-care app specifically focused on brain health to differentiate from the crowd, while porting the other apps in. You could allow the tracking to be broad enough that those with different perspectives on how to protect brain health could all use it.