England (Commonwealth Union) – Over the years app developers have gotten more and more creative with apps from shopping, keeping track of walking, to even substituting taxi meters. NHS (National Health Service) Dr Luke Hale of the University College London (UCL) Division of Medicine recently developed the wellness app Lungry. The app provides users to ability to self-regulate anxiety, stress, sleep problems and training for sports.
The technology applies nature-inspired graphics reacting to breathing in real-time, forming a supportive and immersive atmosphere for individuals to evaluate breathing exercises. Dr Hale aims to utilize the technology to form a breathing management platform, Lungy Health, for patients having asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), together with long COVID.
The medical device version ‘Lungy Health’, for patients having breathing issues, is being development and set to be available in 2023.
The Lungy and Lungy Health apps are created to be scalable and accessible platforms for individuals to self-regulate their symptoms. In collaboration with Professor John Hurst of the UCL Division of Medicine, Dr Hale hopes to conduct clinical research in a group of patients prior to the release of Lungy Health.
As further work on Lungy Health continues, it may possibly replace plastic incentive spirometers by precisely measuring breathing flow and volume. The app will become a remote health platform giving tips on how to enhance breathing and patients can simply track their progress and demonstrate improvements to doctors.
Dr Hale commenced working on Lungy during the first pandemic-induced lockdown in 2020. “I started working on Lungy just as the first wave of COVID patients were coming into hospital. It was a very stressful time for everyone – I thought it would be great if people could use their smartphones in a more productive and relaxing way,” he said. “The way we breathe is linked to both physical and psychological health, so hopefully lots of people can benefit from the technology.”
