New concussion app explains the science
A newly available app — “Rebound: Beating Concussion” — has attributes and innovations that make learning about concussions educational and enjoyable.
But given all the multimedia bells and whistles these days, what’s most notable about “Rebound” is something old-fashioned: It makes the user read while offering a means to adjust the text to reflect one’s reading ability — whether it’s a child or an adult.
“What’s truly noteworthy with ‘Rebound’ is the added-in feature known as ‘adaptive reader’ so the user can decide whether the reading level is just right or too hard and can shift it to make it easier. Or you can ramp up the vocabulary and make it more complicated,” said app creator John Pollock, a Duquesne University professor of biology.
The app’s health focus is concussions — the science, the causes and the treatments — with a goal to dispel myths. The target audience is late elementary school to middle school, with the adaptive-reader making it accessible to nearly all ages.
“Rebound” actually is an interactive e-book with games and quizzes along with puzzles to be solved while the app simulates concussion symptoms including blurriness. The key point? Concussions are traumatic brain injuries — a broken brain — that require treatment and time to heal.
“Ifa kid is playing sports and breaks a bone, everyone knows to go to a doctor, be immobilized and not do regular stuff. Then there’s the need for rehabilitation-before you get back to playing the sport,” said Mr. Pollock, who holds a doctorate in biophysics. “With a concussion, in most cases, you need time to heal, and not treating it leads to a lot of problems, just as would occur if you did not treat a broken bone.”
Already, the app has won a Parents’ Choice Award, given its “intuitive, easy-to-navigate design.”
“The story has three reading levels; however, readers are asked at the end of each chapter if they would like to decrease or increase the reading levels,” the award says.
“This adds not only longterm learning value (as the level of scientific material adjusts as well) but also provides versatility for the app’s use with various age and ability groups.”
Mr. Pollock already has won two Emmy Awards for children’s programming and also musical composition, both for “Scientastic!,” a show he created and produced on the importance of sleep. The show was distributed by American Public Television and broadcast on WQED among PBS stations nationwide.
As a neuroscientist, Mr. Pollock leads pain research at Duquesne but also operates The Partnership in Education group with $1.52 million in Science Education Partnership Award grants through the National Institutes of Health.
“Rebound” compares a concussion with an egg yolk bouncing back and forth against the inside shell of an egg being shaken. It also explains how woodpeckers avoid concussions, with stress-relieving beak structures and a brain tightly nestled inside its skull.
As it turns out, though, only about 10 percent of those with concussions seek treatment, making it one of the most overlooked health problems in America.
“A key to recovery is recognizing symptoms and seeking proper treatment. There are a lot of myths about concussions, and one of our goals is to help educate people,” said Micky Collins, clinical and executive director of UPMC Sports Medicine Concussion Program, who advised Mr. Pollock on the science used in the app.
The e-book accurately and creatively provides “an active and targeted treatment approach for concussion that is easyto understand,” he said.
“We have made tremendous progress in the diagnosis, management and rehabilitation of concussion and the e-book appropriately stresses that concussion is a treatable injury and provides a compelling case example to demystify the fears associated with the injury,” he added.
The app has been online since June for testing, with its official release last week in advance of National Brain Injury Awareness Month in March. It is a free download on iTunes, Google Play and the Amazon App Store.
Mr. Pollock also is working on an app with Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC that’s funded through the Hillman Foundation and designed to teach children who undergo liver transplants about their medications and other necessary information for a successful transplant.
Particularly with “Rebound: Beating Concussion,” his complementary focus is the importance of reading, given that half of Americans have weak reading skills.
“The point is, what we were producing with science and health literacy information, we weren’t challenging them to do it through reading,” he said. “Now we are challenging them to do that, too. And it’s fun.”