Appy face for smart health tracking

THE humble emoji lives.

A universal language system, based on the much-loved TXT icons, is helping patients living with chronic illness manage their conditions, daily.

Emojifit, developed by a team of Charles Darwin University and James Cook University researchers, was launched onto smartphones early last year.

The smartphone app was presented at the 12th Biennial Conference of the Global Network of WHO Collaborating Centres for Nursing and Midwifery in Cairns this week.

Dr Isabelle Skinner, from JCU’s Mount Isa Centre for Rural and Remote Health, said they were continuing to develop an extensive health-related emoji library through Unicode.

The library includes emojis representing emotions, food, activity and some related to medical procedures and concerns. Patients may receive emoji reminders for daily tasks such as taking medication, going for a walk to maintain fitness, or even describing levels of pain.

“The whole purpose is to keep language as simple as possible, so we have a universal language based on emojis,” she said.

“We have 415 million people living around the world with Type 2 diabetes, and they speak a lot of different languages.

“It’s a way of communicating vital information to people, all around the world, and all you need is a phone.” is saving