A new child-friendly eczema smartphone app is helping young patients with eczema take control of the itchy skin condition.

 

The iControl Eczema app, which is available for free on Apple and Android platforms, is designed to help children and their parents assess their eczema daily, track and share their progress with their doctor.

 

Co-developed by KK Women's and Children's Hospital (KKH), the School of Information Technology, Nanyang Polytechnic, and Hyphens Pharma, the iControl Eczema app has the following features:

 

 

“Eczema is a chronic skin condition that can recur with varying severity throughout a child’s life. Poorly-controlled eczema can cause an affected child to experience significant discomfort, anxiety and even depression, leading to low self-esteem, and poor school performance. This can have a profound impact on quality of life for both the child and their family,” says Dr Mark Koh, Head, Dermatology Service, KKH, who provided expert inputs during the app development phase.

 

“As many of our patients with eczema are children, the iControl Eczema app is based on the Patient Eczema Severity Time [PEST] score1, a new simple measure of acute and remitting eczema severity – designed to be easy for parents to use in assessing children too young to vocalise their own eczema assessment.

 

However, the app is suitable for patients of all ages, and can even be set to remind its user to complete their daily moisturising or topical medication regimen.”