One day in clinic, I was following up with one of my hyperthyroid patients, and discussing how her heart rate had been running on her current treatment.  I had taught her how to check her radial (wrist) pulse at our last clinic visit.  When I asked her about checking her pulse, she said ‘I just use an app for that!’.  An app?! I said.  She pulled out her iPhone, opened her free Heart Rate app (google ‘Instant Heart Rate – Heart Rate Monitor by Azumio for Free), placed her finger over the camera light, and BAM! her live heart rate appeared.  Very cool.

While I can’t comment on the reliability/accuracy of this or other apps (there are no health regulatory agencies that I am aware of that control or test these programs), there are certainly oodles of apps out there that are geared towards health monitoring, from calorie counts to exercise to nutrition to many others.  With the advent of the Apple Watch and other related technologies, the choices and variations are going to continue to rise exponentially, and will further integrate physiologic measures such as heart rate, and possibly even blood sugar.

So today’s post is a shout out to you – are there any cool/useful health apps that you like to use?  Please post your responses as comments directly under this blog post.

 

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