Another Migraine App Enters the Market

There’s a whole host of apps for migraines becoming available. After reviewing Migraine Meter, I was asked to review another migraine app. Over at EMRandHIPAA.com, John wrote about a start-up company called Ubiqi Health, which has both an online platform and app to help monitor and help with migraines. Since I wasn’t a big fan of Migraine Meter, I was excited to see how this one works. The website says:

We know that understanding and managing your migraines takes a lot of effort and can often feel like an uphill struggle. Ubiqi Health makes it easier for you with simple tools that can be used anywhere to track your progress and, ultimately, gain more control over your health.

For the purpose of this post, I will be focusing on the mobile app.

First off, the app is free. Awesome, awesome. It’s available for both Android and Apple users, which is great news for everyone.

For both Android and Apple devices, it currently has almost 5 stars.  Just looking at the information listed on there, and the screen shots, makes me feel like it is better than Migraine Meter already. The colors are nice, mainly just white and blue, and it looks like it was designed well. After looking around the website and the description, I decided to try it out myself.

Basically the app has four main things it asks you to track: When the migraine happened, how sever it was, what treatments were used, and any possible/noticeable triggers. The app was created by talking to people who suffer from migraines and finding out their needs. Smart move. Anyways…

First off, when the app is first opened, a registration screen pops up. It asks for basic information, such as email address, age, location, and gender. Pretty simple, and I was able to register pretty quickly.

After registering, you are brought to the home page. Here is a screen shot of it:

As you can see, there are six different sections. Let’s start with “Track Episode” (I think the picture that goes along with that tab is fairly accurate in depicting a migraine, yes?). You simply enter the date/time it started, ended, and intensity. You can also add treatments and triggers, if any of that information is available. For treatments, it has three preset ones (abortive medicine, darkness, and inactivity), but you can enter anything else you did, and for triggers, it has quite a few common ones as well. Entering date and time is really easy, as is entering the other information. For some reason, it bothers me that the triggers/treatments aren’t capitialized, it just seems kind of unpolished. But that’s just personal preference.

Next, there are the track triggers and track treatments. Basically, you enter in the same information you put in the track episode section, and because of that, it feels a bit repetitive. The only part is new, is entering the time of the treatments/triggers. I feel like if these are going to be separate sections, it shouldn’t be included in the track episode section. I think I would only put that information in one of the places, rather than both.

I have the same feelings about the note section as I did about the separate treatment and trigger sections. You can add notes in track episode.

Next, there is view feed. Basically, it just puts all of your activity here. Not much else to say about that.

Finally, when all is said and done, you can select get report, and have a report sent to your email about migraines. This report can be useful for doctor’s appointments, or just for finding patterns in general. I think this could be very useful.

Overall, I like the app. It’s super simple and easy to use. It doesn’t have any “extra” stuff like Migraine Meter (I just didn’t really care for the migraine news section that was the front page of the app), and it’s easy to navigate. It’s also really fast, and information can be input quickly. My only complaints are, as I’ve already mentioned, that the information was a bit repetitive. I get that the “track episode” section is supposed to have all the information in it about each episode, but I just don’t like that you have to enter triggers and treatments in different sections. I think it would be nice to just have to enter the date, time, and intensity here, and somehow have it get linked to the other sections.

This app can be downloaded for Android products here, and Apple products here.

About the author

Katie Clark

Katie Clark is originally from Colorado and currently lives in Utah with her husband and son. She writes primarily for Smart Phone Health Care, but contributes to several Health Care Scene blogs, including EMR Thoughts, EMR and EHR, and EMR and HIPAA. She enjoys learning about Health IT and mHealth, and finding ways to improve her own health along the way.

   

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