Could this App Train You to Avoid Migraine Attacks?

We all know that the body has amazing abilities for self-healing. So what if an app could help your body to train itself to fight migraine?

That’s what Nordic Brain Tech wants to achieve with an app that they’re building as a medical device.

“Biofeedback” is a migraine treatment that is fairly common in headache and migraine clinics. It has excellent scientific evidence behind it. So why aren’t we talking about it more often?

For the uninitiated, biofeedback basically helps you to train your body to change functions that are normally involuntary. Most commonly, when we talk about biofeedback, we’re referring to the use of technology to give us information about physical responses.

A common example is changing the temperature of your hands. Changes in blood flow, easily seen in hands and fingers, are strongly connected to migraine and other conditions. (If you have migraine, have you ever noticed that your hands and nose seem to be colder than other people’s? It’s more common than you might think!)

Biofeedback is a well proven treatment for all ages, but is especially recommended for children, and other demographics that have fewer medicinal options.

So if specialists recognize the value of biofeedback, if clinical trials are putting it on the level of many medications for migraine treatment, why aren’t we talking about it more?

For one thing, to be skeptical for a moment, biofeedback puts treatment into the hands (no pun intended) of the patient. It should be possible to use biofeedback in an inexpensive, widespread way. No one is making billions of dollars on biofeedback at the moment.

But another issue is that biofeedback devices are few and far between. Devices that I’ve mentioned in the past seem to quickly disappear off the market. Or they’re more affordable for a doctor’s office than for individual use.

So it’s great to see some serious research and development going into a personal device that can be used with your smartphone.

So how will this app work?

The app is designed to give you ten minutes of training a day – training that should eventually help you full time. A small sensor is placed on the lower back of your neck, and another on one finger. The first measures muscle tension, the second measures heart rate and skin temperature.

If you’ve had biofeedback treatment, you know that a short ten minute session can lead to immediate improvements. But it can also gradually improve your health long term.

Nordic Brain Tech’s general manager explains more:

We built in artificial intelligence so that the app can adapt to the individual user. The artificial intelligence component compares the information about the body’s signals with the migraine diary and provides the patient with feedback to optimize their training. We also added a game element so that the user earns a score between 0 and 100 for their training. The goal is for the app to eventually be able to predict attacks, their duration and intensity.

Cathrine Ro Heuch

The app probably won’t be available for another two years. But hopefully it will encourage more research and innovation in an area that has been greatly lacking in migraine treatment.

For more information:

• Nordic Brain Tech (official)
• App to treat migraines without the use of medication
• Biofeedback Treatment App for Pediatric Migraine: Development and Usability Study (clinical trial as part of this app’s development)