Artifact 8

After watching this video, I was quite shocked straight from the beginning.  Out of the three statistics that were given about online health, the one that was most shocking was that almost 60% of people go online for a health problem.  Who needs to ask a doctor in person when you have the internet?  WebMD was one of the first sites visited for online health was very useful for getting information, and still is.  However, as society becomes more advanced, there are now interactive sites where not only can the expert teach the user, but the user can teach the expert.  As they describe it, a two-way interaction.  With the iPhone being so popular, there are over 6,000 mobile health apps.  One very popular app that is talked about is an app created by MentalWorkout.com.  Their mission is to change the world of Psychology.  There is a variety of apps this company offers which includes how to deal with stress, anxiety, insomnia, etc.  Also, their meditation app is the #1 selling app in the world!  The great thing about having this sort of application on your phone is the time in between appointments when you need a quick answer, you can go straight to your phone.  One reason why Facebook is so successful is because it brings people together as a community, and with websites like patientslikeme.com, people with chronic illnesses can go to this site to see what other patients, who have the same problem, are talking about.  What is great about this site is that the patients are the ones putting the information on there and researchers are observing and seeing what new research can be done.  The final example of helping people with health problems was gaming.  Currently, there are games out there that are specifically for cancer patients.  The game the video showed, called Remission, is very cool because it has a nanobot that shoots chemotherapy at cancer cells.  Studies show that after kids play Remission, they had a better compliance with antibiotics, chemotherapy, and overall just better outcomes.  There are over 400 of these games.  Being a personal user of the iPhone, after watching this video, it makes me want to download these health apps, just to see how they work.  People who do not have insurance could use these sorts of things to make sure they are in good health when they cannot afford a doctor appointment.  As the apps become more popular, and going online for health questions, and using gaming to treat cancer patients, I wonder what the future could be like for the overall health of people.  Will it be gradually become better and there be less of a need to go to the doctor?  Obviously doctors are needed when a person gets sick or just needs a checkup, but as technology advances, maybe there will no longer be a need for that.  This video was very interesting and it makes me happy to see that many things are being done to help people in need and improve the overall health of a person in many ways.