With menopause comes hot flashes, night sweats and more uncomfortable side effects. But what if we told you there was something right in your pocket (or purse) that could help you deal with all of these symptoms?
This week on “Take Care,” we speak with Dr. JoAnn Manson about a new app that can help you deal with menopause. Manson is professor of medicine at Harvard Medical school and chief of preventive medicine a Brigham and Women’s hospital.
MenoPro is a free mobile app from The North American Menopause Society (NAMS) that can help women personalize treatment decisions for their menopause symptoms. It takes into account their risk factor status and their personal preferences for treatment. According to Manson, it helps users learn the background information for beginning a discussion with their clinicians.
“It’s really important that women have an opportunity to access the resources, information, get the background information, begin to think about what they may be interested in discussing with their clinician,” Manson says.
In her opinion, there’s no reason to suffer with symptoms or put off talking to your clinician about menopause.
Patient and physician
The app has two modes: one for the patient and one for the clinician. That allows both to work together to come up with the optimal treatment, and a personalized treatment for specific symptoms.
If the user does not feel comfortable sharing her information, or is going to go through menopause without the help of a clinician, the app is still available and helpful. All of the information and options are available without seeing a clinician.
A full spectrum of treatment options
The MenoPro app takes each user into account by asking a series of question. Based on the answers, it can provide lifestyle modifications and the necessary information to make those changes. These options can be tried for a number of months, even before seeing a physician.
The app also allows users to calculate risk scores for heart disease, breast cancer and other problems.
“Are you a smoker? What is your age? Do you have a history of high blood pressures? Diabetes? High cholesterol? Etc. It goes through those questions so that it can tell you your 10 year cardiovascular disease risk score, which is really helpful for the woman to know,” Manson says.
These questions can influence treatment. Hormone therapy is safest, for example, if the patient has a low underlying risk of heart disease. A patch or pill can be used if heart disease is at a moderate level. And if heart disease is high in a particular patient, the clinician would not recommend hormone therapy.
The MenoPro app is currently available for iPhone or iPad, but the plan is for it to be available on other mobile devices and in the doctor’s office (on regular computers and as part of a patient’s electronic medical records).
