Top app promotes brain health

Australian groups Alzheimers Australia and the Bupa Health Foundation have hit the top spot on one of the more unusual charts in the world of not-for-profits, the Apple app store.

The top application, BrainyApp, was flooded with 41,000 downloads in two days, which drove it to the top of the Australian app downloads chart for iPads and iPhones.

BrainyApp is a health and wellbeing app, which uses a health survey and memory games to provide users with information about how to improve their heart and brain health. The makers say it helps to reduce users’ risk of developing dementia.

There are roughly 267,000 Australians suffering from dementia, the third leading cause of death in the country, with the BrainyApp makers suggesting that figure will rise to 580,000 in just 20 years.

Chair of the Bupa Health Foundation steering committee Dr Christine Bennett said the number of Australians diagnosed with dementia would increase to more than 400,000 in just eight years.

“This alarming prospect should prompt us all to take actions that can keep our brains as well as our bodies healthy,” she told IT Wire.

There is no cure for dementia, an umbrella term for a group of degenerative diseases of the brain, but it has been a long-held belief that good health habits and regular memory-game activities can help slow the onset of the disease.

Head of the Regenerative Neuroscience Group at the University of NSW Dr Michael Valenzuela, who helped develop the app, said changes in the brain that lead to dementia can start as early as in the 30s or 40s.

“Although the evidence is still developing, we are learning that there are a wide range of lifestyle choices and activities that can improve brain health, and which in turn may reduce the risk of dementia,” Mr Valenzuela told IT Wire.