SlapApp.com » Medical

Muscle Trigger Points

Steve — Tue, 18 May 2010 16:03:38 +0000

Real Bodywork has released another medical related application for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad called Muscle Trigger Points. The app contains detailed references for the most common trigger points and referral patterns to over 70 muscles. There are over 100 trigger points with their corresponding referral patterns and each one includes a detailed image as well as written comments.

You may be asking: What exactly is a trigger point and why do I need to know about them? A trigger point is a tight area in a muscle that causes pain to be felt somewhere else in the body. So if a specific part of the body is hurting, this pain is often generated by a trigger point elsewhere; find and treat the trigger point to fix the problem.

The app uses yellow and blue indicator dots which link to specific muscle groups. The yellow dots are deep muscles not shown in the main graphic but are shown in the referral page. The blue dots are muscles that are both shown within the main graphic and the detailed reference pages. On the main graphic page that shows the full body you have 3 tab options: “Muscles” which shows you the dots referencing the muscle points, “Zones” which shows you broader areas of muscle points, or “List” which brings up a full rundown of all muscles within the app. The List view also contains a search option if you are looking for something specific.

Once a dot or zone is clicked, you are taken to a more detailed image pinpointing the trigger point (marked with an “X”). It also illustrates the surrounding pain that could be associated with that specific muscle by colored blue highlights. Within the detailed view you are provided another set of tabs: “Action” (the muscles purpose), “Referral” (where the pain could go), and “Comments” (any additional comments). The tab layout, along with the text is in optimum location and are thoughtfully integrated within the app. The use of a tab menu in the main graphic of the body, as well as the detailed “zoomed-in” view makes for easy navigation and use. This feature, along with the list view (with search function) made finding a specific muscle an easy task.

The main graphic view with the full body shown provides two views; a front and back. You have a green circle arrow that needs to be tapped to toggle between the two. Basic pinch and zoom functionality allows you to scan around, but only with the 2D image. You do NOT have full 3D capability with the human 3D model. I found myself wishing that you could navigate around the model in full 3D as opposed to 2D with a toggle tab that displays the front and back. Another limitation worth noting is the app does not include all muscles, just the most common ones.

Muscle Trigger Points is an app that should appeal to massage therapists or anyone else involved in treating muscular pain. I would think if you are in this field of expertise an app like this would come in handy from time to time, though I would want a full-referenced version that contained all muscles as well as 3D navigation to really get the most out of it. For the basic user that doesn’t have any experience or awareness of trigger points, the app is quite useful for identifying problem areas and gives us a great visual for pinpointing the problem. I found it very interesting and was unaware that trigger points can actually span across the whole body. For example an arm trigger point can have implications in the hand, and a neck trigger point can cause pain in the face surrounding the eye – who would’ve thought??!!!

Hypertension Pro

Ryan Johnson — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 16:44:37 +0000

If you practice medicine and have been looking for a convenient pocket guide for diagnosing and treating hypertension then you may want to checkout Hypertension Pro. Created by SoftPsych LLC, this medical app provides physicians with clinical information regarding hypertension such as blood pressure and important factors related to hypertension, who’s most likely to suffer from hypertension, treatment overview, medications including dosage and side effects, lifestyle changes and more. It’s possible if you’re a physician that Hypertension Pro could quickly become your best friend.

I’m no doctor, but I did share this app with a friend of mine that’s in med school. Her reaction was, “I can see how it’d be useful”. But she also weighed in on how plain it looked and thought it could definitely use a face lift. So, seeing that I’m not a doctor I’m going to focus my review on the app’s usability, design, and layout.

As you can see from the images it’s working with a grey background and white textboxes. While navigating the app I felt like I had flashed back to the 90’s and was navigating forms within an Access database. It seriously looks just like that. I did find that the information appeared to be thorough and relevant to the topic, but spending more than a couple minutes at a time with this app can be sleep inducing. Keep in mind it’s intended to be a reference guide and not a visual masterpiece, but for the $9.99 price point I definitely expected a lot more.

Hypertension Pro isn’t all text though, there is a little bit of functionality built in. It includes interactive risk calculators for coronary, metabolic syndrome, body mass index (BMI), and stroke risk. For each you enter in patient specific data like age, blood pressure, sex, and existing medical conditions and it’ll calculate the risk for you which I can see being useful.

Overall I was dissapointed with Hypertension Pro. I expected a lot more. Having the word “Pro” in the name I expected something more visually compelling. I expected more data, more color, things like graphs and studies, and so forth. It doesn’t have any of this.

Pros:

Provides pertinent information for diagnosing & treating hypertension

Cons:

Is visually plain
Could be more user friendly
Overpriced

Version Reviewed: 3.1

Requirements: iPhone or iPod Touch; iPhone OS 3.1.3 or later

CPR Buddy

Ryan Johnson — Mon, 18 May 2009 01:28:48 +0000

CPR Buddy by Divide by Zero Software is an iPhone app that assists users with proper technique and timing for performing CPR compressions. Most of us traditionally think of CPR as a combination of breathing and compression, however research shows that in most cases compression is enough to increase someone’s chances of surviving a cardiac arrest. Based on this information, the idea of having an app like CPR Buddy on your iPhone makes total sense to us.

Ok, so how does it work? Well, when you open CPR Buddy you’re presented with an options menu. You can choose between instructions on what to do when you notice someone experiencing a cardiac arrest, or you can choose between audio and visual queues for performing respiratory arrest CPR (compression + breath) or for cardiac arrest CPR (compression only). When performing respiratory CPR a rapidly beating red heart (iPhone vibrates) signifies when you should compress the chest of the victim followed by a rapidly beating green heart that signifies when you should perform rescue breaths.

CPR Buddy is an app concept that we fully support. We definitely believe that everyone, whether they’re CPR certified or not, would benefit from having CPR instructions on their iPhone. That being said we think there are some tweaks that should be done to make CPR Buddy more user friendly and easier to follow. We’d like to see a hot button or link so

users can dial 911 from within the app. We’d also like to see the compression and breathing queues integrated into the visual instructions. Currently, when you view and read the instructions you then have to exit to the main menu in order to access the CPR audio and visual queues. We’re not sure that’s a logical workflow, and feel that it could be confusing for someone in a panic situation. It is our opinion that for CPR Buddy to be affective a user has to be able to open it, dial 911 with no effort, and be able to begin performing CPR or instructing someone how to perform CPR, with little thinking required. We like and support the concept, however we’re not convinced the app is ready for prime time yet.