Rhythm Panel Review
Review updated:
Rhythm is an app that senses when you’re walking and produces a rhythmic sound to help prevent freezing of gait. While one reviewer found the app easy to use, most found the app unclear and unhelpful.
Highs
- The app is free
Lows
- Lack of clear instructions
- Difficult to get used to
- Works by detecting steps so cannot help you break out of freezes, only prevent them
- May drain your phone battery
Our four reviewers are Audrey, Brian, David and Ian. They were asked to test out Rhythm for four weeks before sharing their feedback with us. There were originally six reviewers, but two decided not to continue with the review and did not share their feedback with us.
Symptoms: Our reviewers are living with a wide range of Parkinson’s symptoms, including tremors, freezing, stiffness, anxiety, speech problems and sleep problems.
Tech confidence rating: Ranges from ‘somewhat unconfident’ to ‘very confident’.
Location: Aberdeenshire, Essex, Hertfordshire and Leicestershire
Gender
- Men: 3
- Women: 1
Age range
Years since diagnosis
Background
Rhythm is an iPhone-only app created by healthcare app developer Andreas Ink.
The app launched in 2021. It uses rhythmic audio to help people with Parkinson’s to better coordinate their movement and prevent freezing of gait. It works by detecting when you’re walking and playing a drum-like sound each time you should take a step.
The app also collects health data from your phone, allowing you to view your steps, step length, walking speed, walking asymmetry percentage and double support percentage in the app and share them with your healthcare provider during appointments.
“Rhythm is designed by people with Parkinson’s for people with Parkinson’s,” according to its App Store description.
First impressions
When you open the Rhythm app for the first time, you’ll see an introduction screen that tells you that “studies suggest rhythmic audio can help with freezing of gait” and “once you get up, the app senses that you are in motion and starts playing the rhythm.”
You’re then asked to give the app permission to access your step count, before walking at your usual pace for 30 seconds to calibrate the app.
All four of our reviewers reported having quite negative first impressions of the Rhythm app.
Three reviewers found the instructions on how to use the app to be “fairly unclear”, while Brian, a 77-year-old who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s 12 years ago, found them to be “very unclear”.
“I struggled with the set up due to [an] insufficient amount of information,” he said. “[It] took an age to fathom out how to operate the system.”
Other reviewers were similarly unimpressed by the lack of instructions.
Ian, a 74-year-old reviewer who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s four years ago and feels very confident using technology, said, “[There is] not enough information for set up and explanation of use.”
“I just didn’t understand what I was meant to do,” said another reviewer called Audrey. Audrey was diagnosed 16 years ago and feels “somewhat unconfident” using technology, having not used any devices or apps to help manage her Parkinson’s previously.
Our review panel did agree that the size and colour of the font used in the app was clear and the text was easy to read. There were also no specific accessibility issues reported. However, some reviewers would have liked further clarification on how to use the app or a short video to demonstrate how it works.
“A step by step procedure would be invaluable,” said Brian.
Daily use
Rhythm is a very simple app when it comes to what it does. The idea is that the phone plays a rhythmic sound when you walk, with each sound prompting you to take a step. The app is designed to run in the background behind your other apps, meaning you can continue to use your phone as usual.
Unfortunately, only one of our reviewers found Rhythm easy to use, with the other three reviewers stating that they never got used to the app during the review period. Our review panel originally consisted of six reviewers, but two disliked it so much they decided not to continue testing it.
David is 75-years-old and was diagnosed with Parkinson’s 18 years ago,and his walking and gait issues cause him to feel very anxious in his day-to-day life.
While, like the other reviewers, he was unable to find any instructions during the set up stage, he did find the instructions for using the app to be “straight forward.”
That said, David found the app difficult to integrate into his daily life. He said it was “difficult to carry” his phone around, adding that you “need a bag or pocket to keep [your] hands free” while you use it. He also didn’t find the app particularly motivating to use, noting that the sound was “boring” and “needs to be more lively.”
Ian also found the app fairly difficult to integrate into his daily life. In Ian’s case, the difficulty came from the noticeable effect the app had on his phone’s battery life: “The app drained my battery to zero every 24 hours and [my] phone needed recharging before use each day.”
All four reviewers said that they faced problems with the app every day. Ian cited the battery life issue, while David found it “awkward to get into [the] rhythm”.
Brian said that the “device appears to operate randomly.” He explained that “when the app detects movement it gives out a strange noise but not at a consistent rate. The noise appears in a random fashion rather than a continuous stream.”
Brian also found that, because Rhythm works by detecting your steps and producing a rhythmic sound in response, the app could not help him break out of freezes: “This app detects once you have started walking i.e. it works in reverse to my needs.”
Audrey, meanwhile, never managed to get the app to work. “It just croaked and sometimes showed blue boxes on the screen,” she said. “It did not work for me.”
Value
Rhythm is free to download and use. Despite this, only one of our reviewers thought it was worth trying.
“Any [app] that is free and gets people moving” is worth the price, said David.
David rated both the value for money and overall quality three out of five stars. However, when asked if using Rhythm was a good experience, he said, “not really.”
He said that the app made “very little” difference to his life. “It doesn’t make me motivated to walk, it needs a lively get-up-and-go music,” he said, suggesting that the app introduce marching music or ‘Stayin’ Alive’ by the Bee Gees to its audio options.
The other three reviewers were left feeling “very unsatisfied” with their experience and would not recommend it to a friend, even at no cost.
“It was useless for me,” said Audrey.
All of the information provided in this review is accurate up to the time of publishing. Any major changes to the app or device will be reflected on the product page.