The MyBrainPacer App is being used to help those with mild traumatic brain injury

July 19, 2022, Kitchener, Ontario

Posted by: Robert Deutschmann, Personal Injury Lawyer

A new tool developed at St. Joseph’s Health Care London shows great promise in helping people living with mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). Even mild brain injuries can have lifelong impacts on the brain that will have negative effects on daily life.

Online tools, gamification of health care therapies and the use of apps for healthcare has been around for some time now. As with those used in education, they have been found to be an extremely easy and affective way to teach and increase compliance with treatments.

Here is a copy of the news release from their website.                                     

Much like points tracking used by dieters to monitor food choices, through MyBrainPacer™ App, users can assign values to tasks like driving, grocery shopping, screen use and exercise so they can plan and pace their daily activity. Individual users are given a total number of points per day that will keep their symptoms in the “safe range” and are encouraged to increase their points as their recovery progresses. The concept, based from St. Joseph’s Pacing and Planning Program, has helped hundreds of St. Joseph’s rehabilitation patients achieve their recovery goals. MyBrainPacer™ was made possible through generous donations to St. Joseph's Health Care Foundation.

USE THE MYBRAINPACER APP

 According to the Hospital News:

“By documenting activity levels over time, patients and their clinicians can better understand what activities are linked to worsening symptoms, which they can therefore avoid,” explains Dr. Dalton Wolfe, Lawson Scientist.

The online application is being used as a research tool, allowing Dr. Wolfe and his team to track its efficacy. Much like point tracking used by dieters to monitor food choices, through MyBrainPacer™ App, users can assign values to tasks like driving, grocery shopping, screen use and exercise so they can plan and pace their daily activity. Individual users are given a total number of points per day that will keep their persisting symptoms in the “safe range.” As users track their symptoms through the app, the app adjusts the daily point value to what is best for the user. The app is based on St. Joseph’s Pacing and Planning Program, which has helped hundreds of concussion patients achieve their recovery goals.

“By putting the app in the hands of patients and the clinicians who treat them, the app has the potential to give us data that traces the recovery patterns of patients and how that relates to the activities that they participate in over time,” adds Dr. Wolfe. “This will enable us to document safe levels of activity for persons with specific characteristics or symptom profiles, which could be the key to unravelling better treatment strategies.”

After a number of concussions, study participant Cindy Vanderveen, has been using the app to manage her brain injury and has noticed a positive change.

“In the beginning I wasn’t able to drive farther than five minutes at a time,” remembers Cindy. “My care team at St. Joseph’s recommended MyBrainPacer™ App to help me plan and pace my day. Once I began to use the app to plan and track my activities, my symptoms dramatically decreased. I still have bad days and some tasks are harder than others, but through using MyBrainPacer™ App, I am able to do more activities independently and I am 90 per cent back to who I was.”

Currently anyone with an mTBI can enroll as a study participant on the MyBrainPacer™ App by visiting mybrainpacer.ca.  The research team is hoping to enroll approximately five-thousand users.

The creation of the app has been made possible by funding provided by the Cowan Foundation and other community supporters through St. Joseph’s Health Care Foundation.

About Deutschmann Law

Deutschmann Law serves South-Western Ontario with offices in Kitchener-Waterloo, Cambridge, Woodstock, Brantford, Stratford and Ayr. The law practice of Robert Deutschmann focuses almost exclusively in personal injury and disability insurance matters. For more information, please visit www.deutschmannlaw.com or call us at 1-519-742-7774.

It is important that you review your accident benefit file with one of our experienced personal injury / car accident lawyers to ensure that you obtain access to all your benefits which include, but are limited to, things like physiotherapy, income replacement benefits, vocational retraining and home modifications.