How a New App is Helping Doctors Treat Pain

If you have ever tried describing your pain to a doctor, you know that it can be a frustrating experience. Patients who have lived with chronic pain their whole lives can still find themselves in an awkward situation when asked to go into detail about their condition. A phone app released last year called Navigate Pain aims to relieve some of the confusion.

Closing the Link

Navigate Pain straddles a careful line between being simple enough for patients to use while displaying enough practical information for doctors. By marking spots on a drawing of the human body, patients record types of pain they are experiencing, how intense the pain is, and where the pain happens on a daily basis. Doctors can view the data from their computers to better track the pain as it develops, making it easier to recognize patterns that are indicative of certain conditions. The application’s following features help doctors organize the data they receive:

• A desktop app that makes it easy to share data between devices, from other computers in the clinic to smartphones.
• Exporting data that can be used for other assessment tools within the pain clinic.
• A multi-level security system that anonymizes patient data.
• Built in documentation and tutorials.

How Navigate Pain can Affect Future Appointments

Navigate Pain is currently in beta and not for sale on any app stores. Shellie Boudreau – who is the CEO of the company which designed the software – has an end goal to establish a wide reaching audience for the platform. Boudreau is also a professor the Aalborg University; she plans to work with the school on showcasing the tools provided by the app at several trade shows in Denmark. This tour’s goal is finding prolific partners in the health tech field who can help with exposure.

Navigate Pain is not intended for just the public. There are development plans for academic users who aim to further chronic pain research with the anonymized data gathered by the app. Boudreau and her staff have already found a possible link between knee pain symptoms and possible treatments. While developments are not guaranteed, this app and others like it are certainly helpful for chronic pain patients who cannot reasonably predict when their next pain flare will occur.

Communication between patients and doctor is key to recovery. Garden State Pain Control has helped people throughout New Jersey with a variety of chronic pain conditions. If you feel as if chronic pain is making a significant effect on your life, contact us today to schedule an appointment.