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I came upon this post on the endonurse.com web site. For those who will be having colon cancer screening with colonoscopy, this application may be of value. If the colon is not cleaned well, the risk of poor visualization is high and, therefore,abnormalities such as polyps or cancerous growth can be missed.
Educating patients about how to conduct a proper bowel prep for colonoscopy can be repetitive and frustrating. It’s common for GI staff members to spend lots of time explaining to a patient, hear them say they completely understand, and then wonder if the patient will follow the instructions.
A new product may give nursing staffs more assurance that the instructions will be followed. This product is the Colonoscopy Prep Assistant, a web application for patients. It tracks how many glasses of liquid the patient has consumed, the amount of time between consumption, and notifies the patient when it’s time to drink another glass of liquid.
The application is from WellApps, LLC, which also developed a GI monitor for Crohn's and Ulcerative Colitis patients. The founder and CEO, Brett Shamosh, is also an ulcerative colitis patient. He is therefore at a higher risk for colon cancer and undergoes an annual colonoscopy for screening. During a recent colonoscopy prep, he was instructed by his doctor to drink eight glasses of a liquid laxative every 10-15 minutes for two hours. Shamosh said, "I used a notepad to tally the number of drinks and a stopwatch to keep track of time. Then I decided that there should be an app for that."
The app is available for free in iTunes and the Android Market, and can also be found at www.wellapps.com.
Having a good preparation for colonoscopy is perhaps the most important thing that you could do. Speak to your doctor about the various preparation's that are available. Some of these preparation's are not always covered by insurance, but as I say to my patients: "you spent a lot of money going to dinner, spend the money and get the right preparation that you can do".
