Digital health–with a brain twist–sees increased military adoption

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Mobile mashup: The mil­i­tary’s pro­lif­er­at­ing mix of smart­phones and tablets (Defense Systems):

“Smart­phones and tablets are rapid­ly mak­ing their way into mil­i­tary oper­a­tions, trim­ming costs and giv­ing warfight­ers tight­ly focused capa­bil­i­ties. But these ben­e­fits raise a host of chal­lenges, rang­ing from secu­ri­ty and the need for ruggedi­za­tion, to require­ments for periph­er­als that link to devices designed for con­sumers, not soldiers.

The adop­tion of tablets and smart­phones comes in con­junc­tion with the military’s expand­ing inter­est in apps for these devices. App libraries are pop­ping up and expand­ing through­out the armed services.

The Army’s medics may soon deploy a smart­phone app that’s been dubbed a “brain ther­mome­ter,” Lt. Col. Chess­ley Atchi­son, the pro­gram man­ag­er for the Tech­nol­o­gy Enabled Capa­bil­i­ty Demon­stra­tion, said ear­ly this year. The Defense Auto­mat­ed Neu­robe­hav­ioral Assess­ment can help iso­late depres­sion, post-trau­mat­ic stress, and oth­er neu­rocog­ni­tive issues, includ­ing con­cus­sion. The app from Anthro­Tron­ix will not replace the man­dat­ed pen­cil-and-paper Mil­i­tary Acute Con­cus­sion Eval­u­a­tion in the field, but it can sup­ple­ment that infor­ma­tion, Atchi­son said.”

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