Last week we took a look at two Android apps that can help you to better manage your asthma and remind you when to take your asthma meds. This week, we’ll take a look at a couple of apps iOS (Apple) apps from the iTunes store. iOS apps work on smartdevices such as the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.

Where to find Apple Apps
You’re probably familiar with the famous Apple Mac line of computers. This is the same company who runs Apple’s app store—iTunes. Apple’s iOS is the most popular mobile app platform in the world. You can find apps for sale, but Apple also has many quality apps available for free in the app store. iTunes offers a variety of apps—everything from GPS location/direction apps to what to cook for dinner apps, and everything in between. Let’s take a look at a couple of their free asthma and prescription reminder apps that can be used to manage your asthma.

Asthma MD
The Asthma MD app is an all-in-one type of app that can be used to monitor your entire family’s asthma. You can also choose to help asthma research by allowing your asthma stats to be shared with researchers. Here are some of the Asthma MD’s key features:

• Asthma MD works on the iPhone, iPod or iPad.
• This app is easy to setup and use.
• Allows you to create a digital asthma diary you can keep with you at all times.
• Provides color graphs of your peak flow.
• You can share both your asthma diary and peak flow charts with your doctor via email.
• You can input each of your asthma medications and set up reminders when it’s time for your next dose.
• You can track asthma triggers, such as allergies, pollen, air pollution.
• Allows each user to create personal peak flow zones.
• You can create additional, specific notes in your asthma diary about asthma symptoms and attacks.
• The app will remind you to log in and record your peak flow, asthma symptoms, etc.
• The app is setup to automatically share your asthma stats with the researchers who created Asthma MD. The app sends anonymous information to the researchers--your name and other personally identifiable information is not shared. However, you can opt out of sharing your asthma stats during the setup process.

The Asthma MD app is completely free, and is easy to download to your iPhone, iPod and iPad. One note about using the app on an iPad; the app’s image is smaller, as its made to be used on the iPhone and iPod Touch. However, you can increase the app’s image by looking in the lower, righthand corner, where you’ll find a circle, with “2X” in the middle. Tap this circle, and the Asthma MD’s image will get larger, making it easier to read on the iPad.

When you first open Asthma MD, it will ask you to go ahead and input some basic information to setup the app. Under the appsettings, you will be asked to input a name and email address for each user. While you’re in the setup mode, you will need to decide if you’d like to have your asthma statistics shared with researchers or not. If not, be sure to look for the “Secure Transmission” setting. Right next to this setting is a “button;” turn the button to “off” if you’d like to avoid sending your asthma details to the researchers. Next, you can add in your asthma triggers, medications and even enter your doctor’s contact information, including email address. You can use the app to send copies of your asthma journal and peak flow charts directly to your doctor’s email address.

After you’ve finished the setup you’re ready to start using the app. Look for the “Enter Data” button, tap that, and a page opens with the current time and date at the top. Here, you can enter your peak flow, FEV1, asthma symptoms, triggers, and what kind and how much medication you’ve taken. You can also enter in any other notes you’d like to add to your digital asthma journal. It takes a couple of day’s worth of asthma statistics in order to create a peak flow chart.

I’ve been using this app, with the “Secured transmission” turned off, and have found it very easy to use. It makes tracking and managing your symptoms easy and convenient. One note, you must be sure to use the Asthma MD app on a regular basis in order to have an accurate record of your asthma and asthma symptoms.

RXRemindMe
The RXRemindMe app is just what the name says; it’s an app that reminds you when to take your asthma medications and even keeps track of how much medicine is left for each prescription you enter. This app is made for the iPhone and iPod Touch, however you can also use it on your iPad. You can make the app’s image fit your iPad’s screen in the same way as the Asthma MD app—by looking in the lower, right-hand portion of the screen, tap the circle that has “2X” in it. This will make the RXRemindMe app much easier to view and work with on your iPad.

Here are some of the main features of the RXRemindMe app:

• Allows you to schedule and track medications for each person in your family or household.
• You can set up nine different types of reminders: hourly, daily, every “x” number of days, each month, and more.
• Reminders can be customized for each reminder and each user profile.
• You can track the amount of each medication you enter; each time you take a dose, it will be deducted from the quantity of medication.
• The app allows you to export prescription data to a spreadsheet, which you can then email to your pharmacy or doctor.
• If your idevice has a camera, the app will take a picture of each medication and save it to your user profile. This helps to make sure you’re taking the correct medication at the right time.
This medication reminder app offers a tutorial to help you learn how to use it. Here, again, it’s best to first enter all the medications you’d like to track. Once you have the medications entered, you can create a reminder for each prescription.

I’ve been using this app, and have found it easy to use. Setup takes a little time, but once all the information is entered, you’re ready to go. Each prescription reminder I’ve set up has been on time, and the medication quantities have been correct. One note, a notification messages will appear on the main screen of your iPad to help remind you it’s time to take your medicine.

The Asthma MD and RXRemindMe apps are tool that can help you better manage and track your asthma symptoms, asthma medications and help you remember to take your medications on time. Both of these apps are free and can be found in the Apple iTunes app store.

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