Dementia Australia is launching a free app to monitor cognitive ability, encouraging concerned patients to talk to their GP.
Introducing Dementia Australia’s free BrainTrack app
Imagine if your patients with cognitive concerns could monitor changes in their own cognition.
Now there’s an app for that.
Developed in Australia by Dementia Australia, BrainTrack is an app that lets individuals check their brain health on a monthly basis. And it’s free.
BrainTrack is evidence-based, giving patients with cognitive concerns an opportunity to start a discussion with their GP.
Dementia Australia business innovation manager, Dr Tanya Petrovich, said BrainTrack used a clever design to help patients seek help from their GP to achieve a timely diagnosis.
“Users receive data on their cognitive performance that can be shared with their GP,” she said. “This data is drawn from fun, travel-themed games that check cognition through various activities. These include challenging recall and sensing emotions in others.”
BrainTrack is set in countries including Australia, China, Japan and Italy.
To start using the app, users are prompted to “visit” an individual country each month. They then play a series of games relating to the country they are visiting. Users have different companions for each leg of their journey and need to solve typical travel challenges such as reading maps, collecting bags and calculating expenses. Scores are given for each round of challenges.
“The rich data that BrainTrack gathers is given to the user as a report that can be shared with their GP, to initiate formal cognitive assessment,” Dr Petrovich said. “Your patient can show you their scores across a number of months to see how they are tracking.”
To learn more about BrainTrack and how it works, you can download it yourself from the App Store (for iOS users) or Google Play store (for Android). If you have patients who are concerned about their cognition, but not aware of the app, you could also encourage them to download it.
BrainTrack is one of several apps developed by Dementia Australia, using innovative technology to educate and support people living with dementia, their carers and families.
