BUPA announces brain-health iPhone app, BrainyApp, to help fight dementia

It’s not just physical health that technology can help with. There’s mental health too. Private health company BUPA recently launched its Health Finder iPhone app which enables you to look up various medical conditions as well as check out private health facilities near you and make/check appointments via your iPhone’s calendar. See review here. Now it has announced a new mental health app called appropriately enough BrainyApp.

Billed as the world’s first brain health app, the BrainyApp claims to be the first dementia risk reduction iPhone app designed to help people monitor and improve their ‘Brain-Heart’ health.

Developed by Alzheimer’s Australia and the BUPA Health Foundation, the new app has apparently already knocked Facebook off the number one spot in the Australia and New Zealand Top Free Apps list.  So far it has clocked up more than 130,000 downloads down under.

With the BrainyApp you can take a Brain-Heart health survey about your diet, exercise patterns and lifestyle. It then provides suggestions and ideas about how to improve. Also on board are new brain games. One of these is Word Tennis which requires players to unscramble anagrams in order to move a paddle and hit a ball back to your opponent.

There are currently 750,000 people living with dementia in the UK and this is predicted to rise to over one million by 2021, largely as a result of an ageing population. Latest research also shows that a healthy brain can help maintain a healthy heart and cardiovascular system. Says Jeremy Hughes, Chief Executive of the Alzheimer’s Society:

“Most people know how to reduce their risk of heart disease, diabetes and stroke but they don’t realise that the same healthy lifestyle choices may also lower the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease and other kinds of dementia. The idea is that what is good for the heart is also good for the brain.”

The BrainyApp is currently available as a free download for iPhone, iPod and iPad devices. There are plans to develop an Android app this year. You can find out more information about the BrainyApp on Apple’s iTunes store  here.