This smartphone app can help people with migraines

A research team has finally wrapped up work to come with a smartphone based relaxation app meant for patients suffering from headaches and migraines. The app aims at reducing the frequency of the headaches and migraines. The research team noted that migraine sufferers who used the technique in the app at least twice a week saw an average of four migraines than they usually suffer every month. The research team from the New York University School Of Medicine in the US, the one behind the app, called it RELAXaHEAD. The app guides patients through progressive muscle relaxation or PMR.
In this form of behavioural therapy, patients alternately relax and tense different muscle groups to reduce stress.
"Our study offers evidence that patients may pursue behavioural therapy if it is easily accessible, they can do it on their own time, and it is affordable," said Mia Minen, an assistant professor at NYU.
"Clinicians need to rethink their treatment approach to migraine because many of the accepted therapies, although proven to be the current, best course of treatment, aren't working for all lifestyles," Minen said.
To see if an app might increase compliance, the research team analysed app use by 51 confirmed migraine patients, all of whom owned smartphones. The team asked participants to use the app for 90 days and to keep a daily record of the frequency of their headaches. The app helped them keep track of how long and often patients used PMR.
On average, the participants of the study had 13 headaches per day, every month, ranging between four and 31. Thirty-nine percent of patients in the study also reported having anxiety, and 30 percent had depression. PMR therapy utilising the RELAXaHEAD app dropped to 51 percent after six weeks, and to 29 percent after three months. The researchers, who anticipated a gradual decrease in the use of the app, next plan to identify potential ways to encourage more frequent sessions.
They also plan to study the best ways to introduce the app into their clinical practices.
Minen said the study results suggest that accessible smartphone technologies "can effectively teach patients lifelong skills needed to manage their migraines."