Purpose of App Review
- to review the utility of Common Symptom Guide app for a physician
- to evaluate the medical evidence this app uses
Introduction
Lange’s Common Symptom Guide is a known and trusted reference guide for evaluating and treating patients based on presenting symptoms. The Guide includes lists of pertinent questions, physical findings, and differential diagnosis for more than 100 of the most common adult and pediatric symptoms so help speed diagnosis and treatment.
This app takes the contents of said guide and allows them to be accessed through our smartphone. So we’ll venture together and see how the porting went.
User Interface
When you launch Common Symptoms Guide you get a list with quite a selection of items ranging from patient and family history through to physical examination pearls.
The app contains a search tool with options like a ‘fuzzy filter’ for when you are not sure of the correct spelling of a word and other ‘keywords’ to search for within phrasal verbs.
One of the cool features the app has works as a “word of the day” sort of widget, providing you with information about specific terms on a daily basis. The app supports online and offline modes allowing you to work independently from data connections.
I did find it odd that an app like this does not feature a symptom checker as diagnosis can vary significantly when you have two symptoms together.
Price
- 7-day trial and then $19.99
Likes
- solid contents
- easy to use
- reliable source
Dislikes
- trial time is too short
- can’t select multiple symptoms at the same time
Conclusion
- The Common Symptom Guide is a good reference app that will allow inexperienced physicians to find the right diagnosis based on the patient’s symptoms. Not having a “symptom checker” of some sort is quite a flaw for an app like this as “bloating” and “abdominal pain” are both symptoms that when put together can give you a different diagnosis.
- All in all, it’s a good tool for those MDs fresh out of school.
iMedicalApps recommended?
- Yes
Rating: 3/5
1. User Interface – 3
2. Multimedia usage – 2
3. Price – 3
4. Real world applicability – 4
