Haemo Heroes app launched to help children with haemophilia

14/12/2020

Pfizer Rare Disease launch Haemo Heroes, an app designed to help younger children understand how they can lead a healthy life with haemophilia.

The new app, available to download now, helps children with haemophilia understand their condition. Through a character or ‘hero’, the user learns how to protect themselves, as they support their haemo hero throughout the game.

The aim of the game is to protect their 'hero' throughout the various daily scenarios and complete a series of challenges by interacting appropriately with the environment, making healthy choices, and ensuring their hero takes his or her medication regularly to avoid bleeding.

Download the HaemoHeros app for free

As the haemo hero journeys between rooms of a house they will encounter different everyday scenarios, masked as fun challenges – from cooking, exercising and, bathing, to bedtime. The user is prompted to consider certain aspects of their lifestyle, such as healthy eating, oral hygiene, and physical activities during the challenges, as well as haemophilia-specific situations, including household hazards, appropriate exercise, and protective equipment.

Haemophilia is a bleeding disorder where the body is either partly or completely missing the protein needed to help blood clot.¹ Sufferers can therefore bleed for a longer period of time as their blood does not have enough clotting factor.² As such, haemorrhages commonly occur in joints, especially knees, ankles and elbows, and into tissues and muscles.²

Haemophilia is considered a rare disease, although 1 in 10,000 people worldwide are born with it.¹

Finding out that your child has a bleeding disorder can be a stressful experience for both parents and children. And children with haemophilia often face additional challenges than their peers, such as distress and confusion about their medical condition, activity restrictions, strict dietary requirements and demanding treatment regimes that can be hard for them to understand and self-manage.

Children with a rare disease, such as haemophilia, may face additional challenges than their peers which may be hard to understand at a young age. Using the Haemo Heroes app can help support them in their daily routines, learn more about their condition and show them how they can lead a healthy lifestyle in a fun and non-intrusive way."