What is the Pain Squad™ smartphone app?
The Pain Squad™ app was developed by the iOUCH Pain Lab research team at The Hospital for Sick Children to help kids with cancer track their pain. The Pain Squad™ app is for eight to 18 year olds to track pain related to cancer. Just fill it in twice a day – once in the morning and once at night.
Currently, the Pain Squad™ app is only available for iOS devices. You can download the app here from the Apple App Store.
What does the Pain Squad™ smartphone app do?
The Pain Squad app lets you track the following:
- Where it hurts, how much it hurts and how much pain gets in the way of your daily activities.
- What’s causing the pain (treatment, cancer itself).
- What makes the pain better or worse?
- Exactly where you feel the pain (by marking it on a body diagram).
- What you do to reduce or get rid of the pain.
- When you log your pain.
- The Pain Squad™ app rewards you for using it! Climb the ranks by tracking your pain every day. The more you use it, the more rewards you get!
After you use the app you can view a report to see your answers and print a pain chart.
Why use the Pain Squad™ smartphone app?
After you use the app for a few weeks, you will be able to look back at all of your answers to see what makes your pain better and what makes it worse.
You will also be able to see the different types of pain you feel.
The app might help you notice new or different pain that you can talk to your health-care team about.
You can look at or print your pain charts anytime you want. You can use the Pain Squad™ app to chart out your pain level, the causes of your pain, the effect it has on your daily activities or the things you do to deal with your pain. You can also print or email the charts and share them with your health-care team.
Talking to your health-care team
The app doesn’t tell you how to deal with your cancer pain. If you are worried about your health or your pain (if it gets worse, if you have new pain, etc.), please tell your parents and health-care team right away.
Acknowledgements
The iOuch Pain Lab acknowledges C17 – Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders for their funding and support on the project. The iOuch Pain Lab also acknowledges Cundari for their dedication and hard work with the development of the app and bringing the idea to life.
