Taking Control One Pace at a Time

An innovative online tool gives people living with mild traumatic brain injuries the opportunity to take charge of their symptoms to enhance recovery.

After an intense workout two years ago, Cindy Vanderveen began noticing an array of debilitating symptoms she thought were signs of a stroke. “I had issues with my vision, problems speaking and couldn’t eat or drink without choking on my food,” explains Cindy. “Everything I used to enjoy doing – gardening, cycling, working – it just stopped and my entire life was put on hold.” What the 42-year-old knows now is she was experiencing symptoms of a mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). After multiple concussions over the years, she was struggling with post-concussion syndrome. Although a person with a mTBI may appear fine on the outside, many have to pace their day-to-day activities in order to allow the time needed for the brain to properly heal. Cindy was referred to the Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) Rehabilitation Program at St. Joseph’s Health Care London (St. Joseph’s) where she was encouraged to try a new research tool called MyBrainPacer™App. Developed by scientists at Lawson Health Research Institute – the research institute of St. Joseph’s – the app was made possible by funding from the Cowan Foundation and other community supporters through St. Joseph’s Health Care Foundation. “By documenting activity levels over time, patients and their clinicians can better understand what activities are linked to worsening symptoms,” explains Lawson scientist Dalton Wolfe (PhD), whose team is currently studying the efficacy of the app. Much like point tracking used by dieters to monitor food choices, those using MyBrainPacer™ App can assign values to tasks like driving, grocery shopping, screen use and exercise so they can plan and pace their daily activity. Individual users are given a total number of points per day that will keep their persisting symptoms in the ‘safe range’. As users track their symptoms through the app, the app adjusts the daily point value to what is best for the user. After using the app for some time, Cindy has noticed some significant changes. “In the beginning I wasn’t able to drive farther than five minutes at a time,” she explains. “Once I began to use the app to plan and track my activities, my symptoms dramatically decreased.” Currently, anyone with a mTBI can enrol as a study participant on the MyBrainPacer™ App and use the tool. Hoping to enrol about 5,000 users, Dalton says information gathered by the app “is vital to understand what is working for future therapeutic approaches.”

The MyBrainPacerTM App promotes recovery by helping individuals plan and pace their daily activity. Cindy Vanderveen,

who has suffered several concussions, uses the MyBrainPacerTM App to manage her brain injury.

Anyone interested in using the MyBrainPacerTM App can do so by visiting mybrainpacer.ca.