Using mobile apps is an excellent way to work on recovery after brain injury from the comfort of your own home. There are hundreds of apps designed to help individuals adapt to life after brain injury.
While it’s nice to have so many choices, it can also feel overwhelming. To save you time and energy, we’ve put together this list of the best apps for brain injury patients.
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A brain injury can affect a wide range of cognitive functions including memory, reasoning, and attention. The following apps were designed to help brain injury patients sharpen their mental skills through the repetition of cognitive rehabilitation exercises.
We also included some speech therapy apps for those who want to improve their communication abilities too.
1. CT Speech and Cognitive Therapy
First up on our list is the CT Speech and Cognitive Therapy App. This top-rated app was developed by speech-language pathologists to encourage brain injury patients to practice the exercises and activities needed to stimulate the brain and promote adaptive changes.
Every brain injury is unique and depending on its location, will affect different functions. The CT Speech and Cognitive Therapy App includes over 100,000 therapy exercises that target a variety of speech and cognitive skills such as:
Listening
Speaking
Reading
Writing
Comprehension
Attention
Memory
Visual processing
Problem-solving
Executive functioning
Therefore, the CT Speech and Cognitive Therapy app can be beneficial for brain injury patients with nearly any sort of cognitive impairment. It even adapts to your ability level to ensure you’re provided with the right amount of challenge to keep you motivated.
2. Spaced Retrieval Therapy App
Spaced retrieval is one of the most effective ways to improve short-term memory, according to memory experts. This method involves memorizing a fact, waiting one minute, quizzing yourself, then waiting five minutes, etc…
As you quiz yourself at longer and longer intervals, you cement the information into your memory. The problem is, many brain injury patients with memory problems struggle to remember when to quiz themselves.
This is where the Spaced Retrieval Therapy App can help. Simply enter the information you want to remember into the app, and the app will send you prompts and alerts when it’s time to quiz yourself.
3. Elevate
Elevate offers a wide range of cognitive games that can be used to target your specific cognitive goals. Additionally, many of the games have real-world applications, such as learning how to calculate change or percentages.
Some of the games are especially helpful for brain injury patients. For example, one game involves typing in the best synonyms for a word without using a list. This can help individuals who struggle with language difficulties like aphasia develop their vocabulary.
4. Let’s be Social
The Let’s be Social app is great for brain injury patients who want to improve their conversational skills and relearn appropriate behavior.
Skills you can practice with the app include:
Meeting/greeting people
Taking responsibility
Joining others in groups
Apologizing and excusing yourself
Following directions
Handling criticism
Sometimes, individuals may become anxious because of the effects of their brain injury and withdraw from social environments. This app helps brain injury patients become more confident in their social interactions.
5. Brain Synch
Brain Synch is an app that encourages users to get creative and engage both hemispheres of their brain. Some activities that the app uses to do this involve matching shapes, tracing lines, and recognizing patterns.
It also offers two modes to choose from. You can either challenge yourself and play against the clock or take things easy in Zen mode and go at your own pace.
Accessibility Apps for Brain Injury Patients
Accessibility apps can help brain injury patients live more independently. Whether it’s helping you organize your to-do list or breaking tasks down into step-by-step instructions, these apps can be real life-savers for traumatic brain injury survivors.
6. Qcard
The Qcard app was developed by an actual brain injury survivor who was frustrated by his inability to remember important information.
Qcard is more than just a reminder app. It helps people with executive function and memory issues manage their lives in a simple and intuitive way. It even guides you through complex tasks such as doing laundry, cooking a meal, or following your morning routine.
Additionally, Qcard lets you connect with loved ones so you can delegate and manage tasks together.
7. CanPlan
Sometimes, individuals can struggle with their reading comprehension skills after traumatic brain injury. CanPlan is a planning app that helps break any task down into illustrated, easy-to-follow steps.
8. RogerVoice
For brain injury patients with hearing loss, this app will revolutionize your communication abilities by enabling you to use a phone again. RogerVoice uses voice recognition software to provide a real-time transcript of what the other person on the phone is saying.
9. AccessNow
AccessNow is a crowdsourcing app that can help individuals with brain injuries determine the accessibility status of various locations. Users rate and review places based on how accessible it is, which is very helpful if you use a wheelchair to get around. You can search for specific locations or just look to see what’s nearby.
It’s not just for people with mobility impairments either. Maybe you want to find a quiet place that won’t overload your senses? AccessNow can help you with that. You can even add places to the map as well to help others with similar needs find that spot.
Medical Apps for Brain Injury Patients
Medical apps help brain injury patients keep track of all their medical information and prescriptions. They can be especially helpful in case of an emergency.
10. Medisafe
Medisafe is an app that can help individuals who struggle with medication management. It provides clear instructions and reminders about when to take each medication and informs you when it is time for a refill on your prescription.
The app also allows for communication with family members’ devices and can connect to your Apple Watch so you can be reminded even if you don’t have your phone on you.
11. In Case of Emergency
The In Case of Emergency app allows brain injury patients to store their medical information in a convenient place for medical personnel to find. Just enter your information and turn the app on. It will keep a persistent notification on the lock screen that shows your emergency contacts, blood type, allergies, medication, and other info.
For iPhone users, this function is already built into your phone. Here are the steps to enable it:
Open the iHealth app
Tap Medical ID and hit edit
Enter your emergency info
Turn on “show when locked”
Tap Done
Making sure that medical information and emergency contact information are easy to find provides peace of mind to both the brain injury patient and their loved ones.
Apps for Brain Injury Patients: Key Points
There are a variety of apps available for brain injury patients. Even if the app is not specifically created for brain injury rehabilitation, finding new ways to be as functional and independent as possible in your daily life is always helpful.
The key to recovery after brain injury is to consistently practice affected functions. This helps stimulate the brain and encourages it to make adaptive changes.
The outcomes of every brain injury are unique and whether you’re looking to improve your memory, attention, visual processing, or speech skills, apps can help you practice the repetitions necessary to improve them.
Once you’re out of school, it’s all too easy to stop learning. You may not have any assignments due or tests to study for, but that doesn’t mean you should stop exercising your brain. Doing exercises for your brain is just as important as it is for your body.
Strengthening your brain will improve your memory, concentration, ability to quickly form your thoughts, and so much more. And if you start training your brain now, you’ll be sharper in your old age. Here are some great apps to get you started with daily brain training exercises.
1. NeuroNation
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The NeuroNation app can power up your brain in multiple areas, including memory, concentration, and reaction time. When you first open the app, you are guided through a strengths and weaknesses test that tests your brain in four different areas. At the end of your test, your results are saved in the app and used as a starting point for your brain training.
Then, it’s time to start. There are plenty of fun exercises to complete that feel more like games than educational exercises. While some games are reserved for subscribers, there are many great free choices too.
One of the coolest features of the NeuroNation app is NeuroBoosters, which are little exercises to engage both your brain and body in the middle of a stressful work day. These small exercises come with pictures and detailed instructions to make sure you’re doing them right. There are 11 different exercises to cycle through.
If you purchase a subscription, you gain access to more personalized brain exercises and training. This training program is highly personalized and brings access to more courses. While a subscription is not necessary to enjoy this app, it does provide you with a ton of great extras that are worth the investment.
Download: NeuroNation for Android | iOS (Free, subscription available)
2. Train Your Brain
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The Train Your Brain app has tons of fun and interesting games that are great for both adults and kids. Some games challenge your memory skills, while others test your problem-solving and spatial awareness skills.
Each game has multiple levels so that you are continuously challenged. There are only around 10 games in this free app, but since they progressively get more difficult and present a challenge, it won’t feel like you’re lacking content.
There’s also a daily challenge to complete, prompting you to come back every day. And there’s no limit to how many times you can go through each game. You can continue playing until you feel like you’ve worked out your brain enough.
The only in-app purchase is for removing the ads.
Download: Train Your Brain for Android | iOS (Free)
In this poster, we position and present preliminary work of the design of camera based virtual hand rehabilitation. We position the proposed system as an application that can be hosted on any mobile device such as smartphone, tablet or a personal computer. The primarily focus of the application is to serve as a self-monitoring tool for home-based exercise programs for personnel experiencing stroke recovery. This is made possible by using a mobile camera to capture and measure hand movements during the prescribed rehabilitation exercise performance and provide real-time feedback to the user. Through this approach, we posit that our visual feedback-based approach and the innovative use of mobile camera technology for rehabilitation, has the potential to revolutionise home-based exercise programs for individuals with chronic disabilities.
References
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6.RT Higashida, B Ovbiagele, LB Goldstein et al., “Forecasting the future of stroke in the united states: a policy statement from the american heart association and american stroke association”, Stroke, vol. 44, pp. 2361-2375, 2013.Show Context CrossRef Google Scholar
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Rehab Medical, Indianapolis, launches myRehabMedical. Available on both Android and Apple devices, the app provides customers with instant access to order updates, service requests, contact information, live chats, and product tutorials.
“Rehab Medical has a mission to improve lives, and one way we intend to accomplish this is through innovation and the use of technology,” President Kevin Gearheart says, in a media release. “This app provides our patients with a number of tools and options that will make the patient experience second to none.”
Additional app features such as live chats, virtual service support, and mobility-focused content designed to connect those within the complex rehab community will be introduced in the coming months. The app is also HIPPA compliant, requiring multi-factor identification to protect customer information.
“This organization has made a strong commitment to be our industry leader in technology, and this app is proof of that commitment,” Chief Technology Officer Kenny Hicks comments. “We’ve implemented a robust road map for improving our technology. Soon we will be launching additional features to this app, as well as adding new technology to help both our patients and partners.”
From the initial launch, customers will have a complete listing of all their orders along with a brief overview of the order once they complete registration. A comprehensive library of training videos will also provide tips and tricks on how to get the most out of their equipment.
The myRehabMedical app is now available for download in both the Google Play Store and the Apple Store, as well as online via the web.
Serious games can improve the physical rehabilitation of patients with different conditions. By monitoring exercises and offering feedback, serious games promote the correct execution of exercises outside the clinic. Nevertheless, existing serious games are limited to specific exercises, which reduces their practical impact. This paper describes the design of three exercise-agnostic games, that can be used for a multitude of rehabilitation scenarios. The developed games are displayed on a smartphone and are controlled by a wearable device, containing inertial and electromyography sensors. Results from a preliminary evaluation with 10 users are discussed, together with plans for future work.
References
Steven Dow, Blair MacIntyre, Jaemin Lee, Christopher Oezbek, Jay David Bolter, and Maribeth Gandy. 2005. Wizard of Oz Support Throughout an Iterative Design Process. IEEE Pervasive Computing 4, 4 (Oct. 2005), 18–26.
Brook Galna, Dan Jackson, Guy Schofield, Roisin McNaney, Mary Webster, Gillian Barry, Dadirayi Mhiripiri, Madeline Balaam, Patrick Olivier, and Lynn Rochester. 2014. Retraining function in people with Parkinson’s disease using the Microsoft kinect: game design and pilot testing. Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation 11, 1 (14 Apr 2014), 60.
S.J. Ge_en. 2003. Rehabilitation principles for treating chronic musculoskeletal injuries. Med J Aust 178, 5 (2003), 238–242.
Maureen Kerwin, Francisco Nunes, and Paula Alexandra Silva. 2012. Dance! Don’t Fall – preventing falls and promoting exercise at home. Studies in health technology and informatics 177 (2012), 254259. http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/22942064
K. Laver, S. George, J. Ratcli_e, S. Quinn, C. Whitehead, O. Davies, and M. Crotty. 2011. Use of an interactive video gaming program compared with conventional physiotherapy for hospitalised older adults: a feasibility trial. Disability and Rehabilitation 34, 21 (2011), 1802–1808.
Gwyn N. Lewis, Claire Woods, Juliet A. Rosie, and Kathryn M. Mcpherson. 2011. Virtual reality games for rehabilitation of people with stroke: perspectives from the users. Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology 6, 5 (2011), 453–463.
Simon McCallum. 2012. Gami_cation and serious games for personalized health. Stud Health Technol Inform 177 (2012), 85–96.
Brian A. Primack, Mary V. Carroll, Megan McNamara, Mary Lou Klem, Brandy King, Michael Rich, Chun W. Chan, and Smita Nayak. 2012. Role of Video Games in Improving Health-Related Outcomes: A Systematic Review. American Journal of Preventive Medicine 42, 6 (2012), 630–638.
A. Santos, V. Guimares, N. Matos, J. Cevada, C. Ferreira, and I. Sousa. 2015. Multi-sensor exercise-based interactive games for fall prevention and rehabilitation. In 9th International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare (PervasiveHealth). 65–71.
Devinder Kaur Ajit Singh, Nor Azlin Mohd Nordin, Noor Azah Abd Aziz, Beng Kooi Lim, and Li Ching Soh. 2013. E_ects of substituting a portion of standard physiotherapy time with virtual reality games among community-dwelling stroke survivors. BMC Neurology 13, 1 (13 Dec 2013), 199.
Jan David Smeddinck, Marc Herrlich, and Rainer Malaka. 2015. Exergames for Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation: A Medium-term Situated Study of Motivational Aspects and Impact on Functional Reach. In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’15). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 4143–4146.
Gabriele Spina, Guannan Huang, Anouk Vaes, Martijn Spruit, and Oliver Amft. 2013. COPDTrainer: A Smartphone-based Motion Rehabilitation Training System with Real-time Acoustic Feedback. In Proceedings of the 2013 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp ’13). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 597–606.
The ultimate reference tool for physiotherapists has arrived on IOS and Android!
You asked and we listened, the Physiopedia app is here and waiting for you to download this holiday season. The app is free and brings all of Physiopedia’s articles, which have been beautifully optimised for mobile, to your fingertips. Think of it as Physiopedia’s end of year gift to you.
The app is free however there is an optional, but worthwhile, low cost monthly subscription which allows you to add unlimited articles to your own personal list of favorites within the app. These bookmarked articles are then just one tap away and are also downloaded for offline viewing. Ideal for the busy clinical environment where time is short and internet access cannot be guaranteed.
One of the best free features of the app is Article of the Day where each day there is a new exciting high quality page for you to read. Perfect for a small dose of CPD or great for that inspirational spark when on the go or when waiting for patients to arrive.
Don’t just take our word for how good the app is! Below are some reviews of the app written by the physiotherapy community which explain why it is a must have for physiotherapists working in any setting.
Reviews
What an amazing app. All the information you could ever want at your fingertips and more. Each topic has links so if you want to you can investigate further. This is the best source of physio information I have come across in my quest for knowledge and answers!
I recognise this as an incredibly powerful resource. This changes how in a Low-and-Middle-Income-Countries (LAMIC) we can access current, best-practice knowledge. This allows the development of the profession globally in a consistent and reliable way… I can see this will become a regular go-to resource. Great job Physiopedia!
Clinically useful and based in science! I have been waiting for an App like this for a long time. I work both in a clinic and as a researcher and Physiopedia meets my needs in both worlds. Easy to use, cutting-edge scientific information and connects me to other health care providers around the world. Great App, highly recommend it!
The app is really easy to download from both the App Store and Google Play in fact just follow the links to the relevant store below. Once you’ve downloaded the app and had a look around don’t forget to like and leave a review.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted clearance to MindMotion GO, a portable neurorehabilitation product, for launch in the United States.
MindMotion GO utilizes technology that is designed to be used by patients with mild to lightly severe neurological impairments, as well as in the recovery phase of rehabilitation. Produced by the Swiss neurogaming company MindMaze, the mobile rehabilitation product is an outpatient addition to its MindMotion PRO, which received FDA approval in May 2017.
The PRO version differs from the recently approved MindMotion GO in that it is intended for use in patients with severe impairments as well as in early hospital care—in an inpatient setting—with therapeutic activities able to take place within 4 days after a neurological incident.
“Now that both MindMotion products have FDA clearance, MindMaze delivers a full spectrum of neuro-care solutions for both inpatient and outpatient recovery for patients in the United States,” said Tej Tadi, PhD, the CEO and founder of MindMaze, in a statement. “Our unique capability to safely and securely acquire data through our platform is essential for patient recovery and performance, and positions MindMaze as a powerhouse for the future of brain-machine interfaces. Beyond healthcare, this will enable powerful AI-based applications. We are working on a range of brain-tech initiatives at MindMaze to build the infrastructure for innovations to improve patients’ quality of life.”
The mobile MindMotion GO allows for real-time audio and visual feedback, aiding physicians in the assessment of progress and tailoring of therapy to their individual patient’s performance, according to MindMaze. Additionally, it enables the patients to see their progress as well. The set-up and calibration can be done in less than 5 minutes, so patients can begin rehabilitation sessions while physicians facilitate case management.
The program is equipped with a variety of gamified engaging activities which cover motor and task functions and includes a 3D virtual environment. As a result, early findings have suggested that both patient engagement and adherence to therapy have been amplified. Thus far, MindMotion GO has been trialed with upward of 300 patients across therapy centers in the UK, Italy, Germany, and Switzerland.
Neurological impairments are the main cause of long-term disability in the United States, with a recent study estimating direct and indirect costs associated with neurological diseases cost roughly $800 billion annually. For stroke alone, there are almost 800,000 cases each year, with direct annual costs estimated at $22.8 billion.
MindMaze’s Continuum of Care seeks to support earlier, and ongoing, intervention to enable by healthcare providers in the United States to have access to a cost-effective solution for improving neurorehabilitation results.
Even more resources pertaining to stroke prevention and care can be found on MD Magazine‘s new sister site, NeurologyLive.
Introduction: The number of stroke survivors living with post-stroke deficits is increasing worldwide. Although stroke rehabilitation can improve these deficits and promote the recovery of function when initiated early post-stroke, many survivors are not able to access rehabilitation because of a lack of resources. Early mobile tablet-based stroke rehabilitation may be a feasible means of improving access to recovery promoting therapies.
Objective: To summarize and advance the knowledge of early mobile tablet-based therapies (MTBTs) for stroke survivors with regards to feasibility and barriers to care.
Methods: This thesis is comprised of two major studies. (1) A scoping review summarizing the literature for MTBTs following stroke. (2) A cohort study testing the feasibility of a MTBT for post-stroke communication, cognitive, and fine-motor deficits.
Results: (1) Twenty-three studies of MTBTs following stroke were identified. Most of these therapies targeted communication or fine-motor deficits, and involved patients in the chronic stages of stroke. Barriers to care were summarized. (2) A 48% recruitment rate was achieved and therapy was administered a median of four days post-stroke. However, therapy adherence was very low because of frequently encountered barriers to care.
Conclusions: Stroke survivors are interested in using tablet technology to assist with their post-stroke recovery. However, early MTBT post-stroke may be challenging for some survivors because of encountered barriers to care. Regular patient-therapist communication using a convenient method of interaction appears necessary to minimize barriers and to help patients overcome barriers when they occur.
Our friend Michael from Home Healthcare Adaptations has done it again! This time, he has created an infographic that explains what sensory impairment is, tells us the difference between vision and hearing impairment, and lists some really great apps for both types of impairment and explains how they work. Look at the infographic below for more details (click twice to enlarge). The apps listed are either free or very nominally priced.
Best Mobile Apps for Sensory Impairment
What is sensory impairment?
Sensory impairment or disability, is when one of your senses; sight, hearing, smell, touch or taste, is no longer functioning normally.
A person does not have full loss of a sense to be sensory impaired.
95% of the information about the world around us comes from our vision and our hearing.
Vision Impairment vs. Hearing Impairment
285 million people are estimated to be visually impaired worldwide.
39 million people are completely blind.
More than 4 in 5 people living with blindness are aged 50+.
360 million people have moderate to profound hearing loss.
Current production of hearing aids meets less than 10% of global need.
Approximately 1 in 3 people aged 65+ are affected by disabling hearing loss.
Mobile Apps for Vision Impairment
App: Tap Tap See
What it does: Uses the device’s camera and VoiceOver functions to photograph objects and identify them out loud for the user.
Features: Double tapping the screen enables the user to photograph any 2D or 3D object at any angle and define the object within seconds.
The device’s VoiceOver function audibly identifies the object to the user.
Includes the ability to repeat the last image’s identification and save the image to the camera roll with the attached tag.
Allows the upload of identified images from the camera roll and can share identification via twitter, facebook, text or email.
Platforms: iOS and Android
Cost: New users are provided with 100 trial pictures to start. 4 subscription plans are available starting from $4.99+.
App: Be My Eyes
What it does: It connects blind people with volunteer helpers globally via live video chat.
A blind person requests assistance via the app.
The volunteer receives a notification for help and a live video connection is established.
Features:
Utilises the iPhone VoiceOver technology which enables synthetic speech and a touch based interface.
At the end of each session there is a ‘rate it’ or ‘report misuse’ option both for the helper and the user.
Platforms: iOS. Android version in production.
Cost: Free, but a subscription may be put in place from September 2015.
Over 13 Million Installations In 213 Countries And U.S. Territories
Enhancing the quality-of-life, independence, and employability of people with disabilities through the development of fully-accessible, high-quality, mobile applications.