Introducing 'PauseTrack' The Menopause Tracking App

After 5 years trying to convince her GP she had menopause symptoms, a woman from Nottingham has developed her own app to help other women enduring the same problem.

The app launch comes as today marks World Menopause Day and new statistics reveal that there are 13 million women in the UK with peri or post-menopausal symptoms.

With a back ground in health research, Dr Claire Mann set up her company ChangeXtra after discovering a lack of real evidence and research on the subject. Claire has built a community of women who can support each other through positive change. To further improve the research on menopause while actively helping women, she has today launched an app called Pausetrack.

Pausetrack isa personalised health tracking app focusing on symptoms of peri-menopause that women often experience from their 40s onwards (and sometimes younger). Women can track multiple symptoms (including periods, sleep, moods, weight) and interventions (such as medication, exercise, or lifestyle changes).

There are currently more than 30 recognised symptoms of the menopause, and the peri-menopause – when hormone levels begin to fluctuate, and symptoms may appear – can begin in the early to mid-40s. Symptoms last, on average, between four and eight years.

Dr ClaireMann: “I was around 40 when I first started to experience symptoms. I just didn’t feel right; I was anxious and couldn’t quite join up the dots. I was fobbed off by my GP and offered anti-depressants. This led me to do my own research. I used period tracking apps and monitored my sleep, but these apps weren’t perfect. There was nothing suitable on the market, all other health tracking apps were focused on fertility, hence the reason I have created one myself.”

Claire went back to university to study data science and learn to code, so she could develop her app, Pausetrack. She has already won awards for her efforts, such as the Engineers in Business competition last year and subsequently developed the app alongside students at Nottingham Trent University (NTU) after winning funding from both NTU and The University of Nottingham.

“I felt the idea had been validated, so I went back to university, studied data science, and learnt to code. I was then able to develop Pausetrack with support fromNottingham Trent University, University of Nottingham, and The Royal Academy ofEngineering, which I am very grateful for. I have built a community of women who are experiencing menopause through ChangeXtra, so I was able to test the app and prototype with them. The feedback has been very positive so far.”

Claire believes her app will make a huge difference in helping women collate real evidence to share with their GP so they can get the help they need. It took Claire until she was 45 before she finally felt she had made a breakthrough and she wants to prevent other women from having to endure this.

“I went to theGP lots of times and had tests over several years before I got the help I needed. The app will help GP’s to correctly attribute the symptoms to menopause more easily so other women do not have to go through what I did.”

Through her company ChangeXtra, Claire has been working hard over the last year on getting people talking more openly about health issues. Particularly, she has been focusing on the problems menopause is having in the workplace by carrying out workshops and providing training for employees. She hopes that the Pausetrack app will only help improve that.

“A staggering900,000 women in the UK quit their job due to the menopause and I have been working with a lot of companies to help open up the conversation about the menopause in the workplace and I believe the app will further the support.”

Whilst today marks the launch of version 1 of Pausetrack, Claire has big ambitions to raise more investment and develop this further, particularly focusing on her aim to generate big data on the subject which will help improve the lives of women in the future.

“The aim is to eventually have the biggest database of information about peri-menopause symptoms and how to understand and treat them, so we can help develop research and use it to improve services and support for future generations. We need as many women as possible to download the app and start tracking symptoms, that way we can raise further investment to put into building the next version of the app with many more features to help women.”

The Pausetrack app is available to download now on the Google Play and Apple App Store and for more information head to www.pausetrack.co.ukor follow @pausetrack on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

‍