Health apps: One click a day can keep your doctor at bay

It’s tough to keep track of your health, especially if you have a hectic work schedule. Nowadays, no one has time to go to the doctor and have a check-up done when they’re feeling under the weather. We are all too busy with our appointments, presentations, and always dug up into our smartphones, laptops, tabs or continuously playing addictive video games (which adversely affect our health in the long run). But, with all kinds of innovation in technology, there are several medical apps through which you can get advised on medical matters, get recommendations from a doctor, even book a hospital bed or keep track of your fitness levels. Here, we recommend some such apps that will help you keep tabs on your health without having to visit a doctor. PRACTO Practo is a health app through which users can book doctor’s appointments at clinics and hospitals, order medicines, set medicine reminders, consult doctors online, manage digital health records and get some health tips. User can book appoint- ment based on specialty and name, check doctor’s qualifications, consultation fees and get feedback about the doctor from other patients. Users can also upload their medical reports and prescriptions, and get recommendation from the doctor. Users also get medicine reminders based on days, time and frequency. Users who have booked an appointment with any doctor also get reminders for upcoming appointments, and it is also integrated with Uber cab. Practo also features Practo’s online pharmacy store through which users can order medicines and OTC products. Currently, there are around 1,25,000+ verified doctors and clinics across major Indian cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata and Chennai. Practo app is available for free on Android and iOS. ICARDIO GPS HEART RATE TRAINER iCardio GPS Heart Rate Trainer app tracks runs, walks, cycling and more. The app also records time in workout, distance, speed, splits, laps and more through GPS maps. The app also features voice feedback which users can customize according to their need. It also monitors real time heart rate and calories burnt. It also sports fitness assessments and measure user’s VO2 Max & Overall Fitness Levels, Create Custom Heart Rate Training Zones. Users can also track Indoor Cardio like Rowing & Elliptical. Users can see their progress real-time with easyto-read metric screens. iCardio GPS Heart Rate Trainer app is available for free on Android and iOS. FITBIT Fitbit app helps users to track the calories consumed, log their weight and record other health related data such as blood pressure and glucose levels. Fitbit also creates custom workouts based on user fitness level. It also tracks your daily goals and shows progress over time in steps, distance, calories burned and so on. Fitbit also tracks runs, walks and hikes through GPS. The app also logs food to see how many calories users consume each day and gives notifications to manage weight over time, and tracks heart rate with Fitbit Surge and Fitbit Charge HR. This fitness app tracks the hours of sleep and water consumed each day, and send notification to users to how much water a user is supposed to consume each day. The Fitbit app is available for free on Android and iOS. DOCTOR ON DEMAND As the name suggests, Doctor On Demand app helps us- ers to connect with licensed professionals through video chats and audio calls, giving them medical advice and prescriptions based on particular symptoms without actually going to the doctor’s clinic or hospital. The app is also covered with health insurance which means users can simply add their health insurance information and the app will instantly show them their copay. The app also allows users to book a therapy appointment in advance so that they can have live video visits with a doctor while sitting at home. Board-certified physician, psychologist, physician, pediatrician and more are available through the app at affordable prices. Doctor On Demand app is available for free on Android and iOS. BLOOD PRESSURE Blood Pressure helps users to control their blood pressure with multiple built-in features like measurements analysis, statistics, and graphs with ability to export data. It also generates ancillary information necessary for the proper treatment of arterial hypertensions, which users can directly send to the doctor on the automatically generated reports. The app includes Data where users enter systolic-diastolic data, pulse, weight, date, time, and description; History to track all instances of entered information; Graph to represents the history of blood pressure information given to the app and statistics to displays best, worst, mean, maximum, and minimum blood pressure data of all the information the user has provided to date. Blood Pressure app is available for free on Android.