Can owning a smartphone actually save your life?

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Just less than a century ago, the kind of phones that were available are clearly different from the ones available now. It shows technological advancements. But, do you think the development in the phone world is only for luxurious purposes? I think you should stay around, to see the answer for yourself. You can easily have access to medical care because of some mobile apps that could be downloaded to your smartphone. You don't need to know much in the medical line to use many of these apps, it's so easy to use. In this article, I'll be talking about some of these awesome apps/features you could have on your smartphone.

Location

This is one feature that could actually save your life. You could even share your location to a family member or a trusted friend. This will be very helpful in case of an emergency, they can easily locate you. Since they have access to your location at all times. When you feel you feel that someone is stalking you and he looks really dangerous, you can easily share your location to a friend (perhaps a police friend). Even your phone is later taken from you and switched off, you last known location is still shared with your trusted contacts. This is a new feature on most smartphones that you can consider trying out.

MPower

I read about the app recently, while doing a research for a lecturer. The MPower App^[1], is used for detection of Parkinson’s Disease symptoms. That's one disease I wouldn't want to talk about, but if you are seeing that name for the first time it is a disease that affects someone's nervous system. As a result of it, the person's muscles become weak, so it's common to see someone with Parkinson’s disease having shaky hands or legs. Aside the symptoms the app helps monitor, it also have features and games to help examine someone, to check out for progress.

HIV & Syphilis Test

There's a dongle that was created recently by researchers from Columbia University. The dongle doesn't work for testing just HIV, it also works for testing Syphilis that makes it more like a two in one dongle. All that is required is just a drop a blood, and the dongle does the test withing Fifteen mins. The dongle is connected to a smartphone, so it does not require any other power supply source.

According to the researchers^[2],

the dongle performs enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to detect HIV antibody, treponemal-specific antibody for Syphilis, and non-treponemal antibody for active Syphilis infection.

You can find the researchers comments in a writeup entitled Science Translational Medicine.

Detection of Skin Cancer

Yeah, you read that right. With your smartphone you can detect skin cancer with some apps. SkinVision and Doctor Mole can easily do the job for you. How does it work? The first step is for you to take pictures of your skin. Then you let the app do it job, it then analyses three main things to see if there is a difference in your skin arrangements. It analyses your skin colour, regularity of borders and the symmetry. If the App comes across a part of your skin it doesn't understand, it will let you know advise you to see a doctor.

Heart Monitor

This has been one of the features of Samsung's bestselling phones tight from Galaxy S5. The heart monitor helps you calculate the number of times your heart beats within a minute. It let's you know if it is within the normal human average for your age, and if you need to see a doctor. All you need to do is to place your finger on the sensor at the back of the smartphone for few minutes while it does the calculation. A very simple tool to use indeed.

There's also a smartphone case you can use if you do not have a Samsung Galaxy. The case was developed by AliveCor, it also calculates your heart rate using your fingertips. This is quite different from the Galaxy's heart rate sensor, all you have to do with this one is to rest your finger on the case then it does it job. There are some transmissions that goes on I wouldn't want to talk about. It would notify you if there is any problem.

^{Image showing the normal human eye.}

Eye Cancer

We talked about skin cancer, I guess it will be fair of we talk about how a smartphone can help identify eye cancer. For eye cancer, a smartphone camera is used. This is the most simplest process, you do not need to download additional apps. Just for you to open the preinstalled Camera that comes with the smartphone and take a picture of your eyes. You have to turn on your flash light when taking the picture, if your flashlight doesn't work it would fault the result of the test. The colour of the pupil in the picture will be observed, if it is black all is good. If it is white, you could try snapping some other time. If it remains white, then it may be a tumour and it would be wise to pay your doctor a visit. An ophthalmologist to be specific.

There are some other notable features that should be mentioned. If you are thinking about suicide, there are apps where you can let your thoughts and be heard. There's also the emergency contact feature, where contacts are contacted when there is a problem. To answer the opening question, I'll say yes - A smartphone can actually save a life.

All images used are under Creative Commons CC0. Images are from http://pixabay.com.

References 1, 2, 3

Thanks for reading :)

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