Recently, we signed into a popular Internet medical site—we won’t say which—and typed in “headache.” The result? One of the top search results included the word “emergency.” Frankly, we’re glad we stopped there and didn’t type in “panic,” “coffee cravings,” or “need for oxygen.” But qualified medical professionals are using new technologies to make good assessments about our health—and to help us do the same for ourselves. Here, they tell us their fave apps.
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“I strongly encourage patients who have smartphones to download apps that can help them take their contraceptives on time.” — OB/GYN Tiffany Werbin-Silver, MD Westchester Health Associates, Mount Kisco, Valhalla, Yorktown Heights, and Katonah |
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“Myfitnesspal.com is a calorie calculator with an app, and, when used in conjunction with the personalized food plans and private counseling sessions, it provide clients an easy tool for tracking their intake and burn rate. My clients actually say they enjoy plugging their food and exercise into their iPhones and seeing how many calories they have eaten and burned each day.” —Amy Horwitz, MS, RD, CDN, Amy Horwitz Nutrition, Mount Kisco and Harrison |
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“I think calorieking.com is one of the best databases available, and they have an app, too. At the end of the day, it tells you if you are under or over the number of calories you should have. People can do the same thing by logging everything in a notebook, but you have your phone on you all the time so it’s more consistent. It reinforces patients to keep up with it.” —Elizabeth DeRobertis, MS, RD, CDN, CDE, Scarsdale Medical Group, Harrison |
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“I use a camera app to take videos of my patients and play them back for them so they can see their ‘functional movement,’ which is a great indicator of how healthy they are and a predictor of injury. It’s also very price-conscious.” |
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“I like the Lose It! app for iPhone and Androids. It allows you to set goals and establish a daily calorie budget to help you reach your weight loss/maintenance goals. It even has an option to add ‘motivators,’ which sets up reminders to log food and exercise. My clients really love it, and those who use it on a consistent basis do better in general than those who don’t.” |
