User Guide

Contents

• Introduction
• Background
• Application Structure
• Fertility Status
• Screen Layout
• Activity Frames
• Graph
• Calendar
• Day Notes
• Cycle Notes
• Statistics
• Using the Application
• First Use
• Setting up History
• Changing Cycle Dates
• Starting a New Day
• Starting a New Cycle
• Setting Alarms
• Note Search
• Preferences
• Hardware Buttons
• Technical Notes
• Temperature Data
• Compatibility
• Backing Up
• Support

Introduction

Pocket Lifestyle: Menstrual Cycle is intended to assist you in managing information about your menstrual cycle and helping you draw your own conclusions about your cycle and fertility.

Using this application you enter key events in your cycles such as the start, the day of last menstrual bleeding, your ovulation day along with information about how you determined the ovulation day and how confident you are about it.

Based on this information the application will indicate your fertility status for any day.

This information can be viewed as a graph, a calendar or as text for up to 99 cycles in the past. It will also show projections for up to 24 cycles into the future.

You can also record your waking body temperature for any day and the application will show graphs for your current cycle and up to 99 in the past to assist you in determining your ovulation day.

To further assist you in understanding your cycle you have the option to record and review text notes for any cycle or for any day up to 99 cycles in the past. You can search for these notes recorded with any day or cycle in the past.

THIS APPLICATION SHOULD NOT BE USED FOR CONTRACEPTIVE PURPOSES.

Assessing fertility based on historic information using numerical rules can never be 100% accurate. There is also a significant risk that observations do not accurately represent the factors which control the cycle at any point in time.

Background

Determining and tracking the length of a menstrual cycle and days that menstrual bleeding occurs are quite straight forward.

However the key to assessing fertility is the determination of the ovulation day. There are a number of techniques which may be employed; however anything more than listing a few common methods is beyond the scope of this document.

Whichever methods are used you must consult alternative sources of information to understand how to use them properly. Generally the more alternative methods used the greater the confidence you can have in the results.

For the purpose of presenting fertility status only it is assumed that sperm can survive for up to 3 days before fertilising an egg and that an egg can survive for up to 2 days after ovulation occurs.

Application Structure

Some information relates to the cycle, such as the length or day of ovulation. Other information relates to a single day within a cycle, such as a temperature record.

When using this application there is a minimum of 17 days per cycle and a maximum of 35. If your actual cycle is near or outside these bounds any fertility tracking is likely to be unreliable.

In addition to the current cycle up to 99 cycles of historic data may be retained and projections are calculated for up to 24 cycles into the future.

Fertility Status

A fertility status is determined for each day of a cycle.

Bleeding: From day 1 to the last bleeding day as recorded on the Cycle Notes frame (or to the projected last bleed day as recorded on the Preferences screen for projected cycles).
Ovulating: Derived from the Ovulation Day and the Ovulation Confidence as recoded on the Cycle Notes frame (or 2 days either side of the projected ovulation day as recorded on the Preferences screen for projected cycles).
Fertile: The 3 days before the earliest possible Ovulation Day and the 2 days after latest possible Ovulation Day.
Not fertile: All other days.

Screen Layout

Header Area
The header area is visible at all times. It shows key information about the Current Status of the current cycle. It also contains Frame Buttons to switch between the 5 available activity frames.

Current Status
The current day of the current cycle is shown in large digits.
The length of the current cycle is shown to the right of the current day after a ‘/’.
A fertile/not fertile indicator is shown above the length. A green light [] indicates not fertile (or white [] on non colour devices), A red light [] indicates potentially fertile days (or grey [] on non colour devices).

Frame Buttons
The 5 buttons used to switch between different views from left to right are:

	Graph View
	Calendar View
	Day Notes
	Cycle Notes
	Statistics

When a Frame Button is tapped the old view will scroll out and the new view scroll in within the Activity Frame.

Frame Title
The Frame Title will indicate which view is currently presented in the Activity Frame.

Frame Header
The content of the Frame Header will depend on which view is currently shown in the Activity Frame. Generally on the left will be buttons to navigate between cycles or days, in the middle is the Cycle Indicator and on the right the Graffiti Shift Indicator.

Cycle Indicator
Inside curly brackets {} the cycle displayed is indicated.
• 0 is the current cycle
• -1 to -99 are historic cycles with -1 the last cycle and -99 the oldest
• +1 to +24 are projected cycles with +1 the next cycle and +24 the most distant
The Cycle Indicator is not displayed for the Statistics view.

Graffiti Shift Indicator
Shows the Graffiti shift state and is only present when there are text entry fields in the Activity Frame.

Activity Frame
The Activity Frame is the main area of the screen for presenting and entering information.

Activity Frames

The activity frame can be changed by either using the Frame Buttons in the Header (see Screen Layout) or by using the View menu options.

Graph

This frame shows a graph of a single cycle showing the status of each day in the cycle and, if used, the temperature records.

The temperature graph can be used as an indication of when ovulation occurs (a rise in temperature in the middle of the cycle). Once the ovulation day has been determined it should be recorded on the Cycle Notes frame, the application does not attempt any calculations based on temperature.

The horizontal axis is the day of the cycle and each column on the graph is colour coded/shaded according to the Fertility Status on the day.

The vertical axis is used for temperature; the scale can be either in Centigrade (°C) or Fahrenheit (°F) (see Preferences). If there is no temperature data recorded for the cycle shown, or if the cycle is a projection then the temperature scale will not be shown.

Tapping a column in the graph will switch to the appropriate Day Notes frame.

Today’s date is indicated by a box at the top of a column. This will only appear for the current cycle.

Calendar

This frame shows the Fertility Status of each day on a calendar. This view can be used to view status by date, day of the week or month.

The indicated cycle (see Screen Layout) will start in the 1st column (week) as many other cycles as possible will be shown before or after as will fit into the 8 week display.

Tapping on a day within the calendar will switch to the appropriate Day Notes frame.

Today’s date is indicated by an oval around the appropriate day box.

Day Notes

This frame shows information for any single day (date, day of the cycle and ovulation status). It also shows, and allows the entering or updating of, free text notes and temperature for the today or days in the past.

Notes can be up to 120 characters and temperature can be recorded in steps of 0.05°C or 0.1°F depending on the temperature scale Preferences.

Cycle Notes

This frame shows information about a cycle (length, number of menstrual bleeding days, day or ovulation and start date).

For the current or historic cycles information about ovulation can be recorded:
Ovulation confidence (below the ovulation day): is the degree of uncertainty attached to the ovulation day. It can be “Confident” when likely to be on the day recorded, “+/- 1 day” if it could be a day either side, “+/- 2 days” if it could be 2 days either side or “No ovulation” if ovulation does not occur in the cycle for any reason.
Based on: A series of check boxes to show which methods were used to determine the ovulation day. These are only for information and not used in any calculations.
Notes: Up to 120 characters of text notes relating to the cycle, for information only.

For projected cycles the ovulation confidence is assumed to be “+/- 2 days” and based on “History/Other”. There is no provision for recording text notes for projected cycles.

To change the cycle length, number of menstrual bleeding days or the ovulation day tap on the number. This will display a dialog box showing a grid of available values to select by tapping. The currently selected value will be highlighted with an oval around the number.

Only the values for the current or historic cycles can be changed here. To change projection values the Preferences must be used.

The start date of the current cycle can be changed by tapping on the From date field. This will bring up a dialog box from which a new date can be selected. It is not possible top select a date in the future. See also Changing Dates.

Statistics

This frame shows for all complete historic cycles (excluding the current cycle) a calculation of the maximum, minimum and average cycle length, number of bleeding days and ovulation day. It also shows the projected values for the same parameters.

Averages are calculated to the nearest whole day. For example 3 cycles of 26, 27 and 27 days would average as 27 days whereas 26, 26 and 27 days would average as 26 days.

The total number of historic cycles is also shown. This will be up to a maximum of 24.

Using the Application

On an ongoing basis this application would be used:
• to refer to past records, e.g. to look up the start date of your last period
• to look at future projections, e.g. based on past experience would you expect to be fertile on the first weekend of the month after next
• to update the database with significant information, e.g. another cycle started today

Apart from the ongoing activity there would be a need to set up basic information in order to use the application properly, for example entering records from the system you used before, e.g. a diary.

First Use

When first starting the application the current cycle will be set up with the following default data:
• Cycle length 28 days
• Last bleed day 5
• Ovulation day 15
• Cycle start date today (i.e. day 1 of the cycle)

This should be changed to real information before proceeding further.

Setting up History

History can be set up by attempting to view a cycle older than the oldest currently recorded.

Using the Cycle Notes frame if the left arrow is tapped the cycle is changed to the previous one, if however it is already showing the oldest cycle and the oldest is less than 99 in the past it will offer the option to add another cycle on the end. The new oldest cycle created in this way will be initialised with default data.

Changing Cycle Dates

Only the start date of the current cycle can be changed, all other dates shown are derived from this and the of cycle lengths.

To change the start date of the current cycle tap on the date in the Cycle Notes frame.

To change a start date of any cycle in the past change the appropriate cycle length in the Cycle Notes frame.

Starting a New Day

When using the application for the first time on any day a few housekeeping tasks are performed before starting the Day Notes frame showing today's date. Starting the application subsequently on the same day will start in the frame, cycle and day last used.

If the next cycle has not started by the time the projected length is passed the current cycle length is automatically extended. For example, if a cycle that started on 4-Nov-2002 was projected initially at 26 days long and the next cycle had still had not started by day 27 (30-Nov-2002) then the length would be automatically extended to 27 days. This would only affect the length of the current cycle not the length used for future cycle projections.

If there has been more than 35 days since the start of the last cycle, a new cycle must be started, making the length of the last cycle no more than 35 days before the application can be used.

Starting a New Cycle

There are 2 ways to start a new cycle; usually this will be from the Action/Start New Cycle menu, but it can also be when using the application for the first time more than 35 days from the start of the last cycle.

A new cycle can not be started within 17 days of the previous start date.

The new cycle can either be defined to start today or by entering the length of the last cycle a new cycle is set up.

Before the new cycle record is created the length of the last 3 cycles (including the one just completed) are averaged. If this average is different to the projected length an option to update the projected length is offered.

The length, last bleeding day and ovulation day of the new cycle will default to the projection values (see Preferences). The ovulation confidences will be set to "+/- 2 days" and will be based on "History/Other".

Once a new cycle is started all history records will be renumbered, and the previous cycle will become cycle -1. If there are already 99 history records the oldest will be automatically removed from the system.

Setting Alarms

Set alarms using the Action/Set Alarms... menu option.

It is possible to set up to 3 alarms which are triggered in relation to a day of the cycle. These can be used to remind you of things that you need to do on a certain day or in advance of a certain day.

For example if you ovulated on day 15 of the last cycle and plan to use hormone tests to check for ovulation you may want to be reminded on day 13. You may also like to be reminded a day or two in advance of you new cycle starting that it is due.

There are 3 parts to defining an alarm:
• The day of the cycle to relate it to
• The number of days in advance of that day to warn you (0 to 7)
• A comment to appear with the reminder

Once set (tapping OK on the "Set Alarms" screen) there is no further action required.

If more than one alarms are set to appear in the same day (e.g. Alarm 1=Day 5 on the day, Alarm 2=Day 8 3 days in advance) then only the first (Alarm 1) will be used.

When triggered (when the alarm day is reached) the behaviour will differ depending on the Palm OS® version.
• In Palm OS® version 4.0 and later a system alert will be used. There will be sound, vibration and/or lights according to how you have defined your device to operate. Then there will be a flashing asterisk in the top left corner of the screen which when tapped produces a "Reminders" dialog box containing the menstrual cycle alarm message.
• In versions of Palm OS® earlier than 4.0 a single simple message box will be displayed containing the menstrual cycle alarm message.

After an alarm is set the actual date it is due to trigger can be recalculated due to changes in the applications data:
• Starting a new cycle
• Changing the projected length of the current cycle
• Automatically extending the length of the current cycle when the projected length is passed
• Changing the start date of the current cycle

Changes to the actual dates of alarms are automatic and no interaction is required.

Note Search

To search for text in either the day notes or cycle notes use the find icon to the side of the Graffiti® writing area.

The notes for each day and each cycle (current and historic) in the Pocket Lifestyle: Menstrual Cycle database will be compared to the find text.

Any matches found will be listed under 'PLCycle'. Matches found in the Cycle Notes will be shown as the cycle number and start date of the cycle, e.g. "Cycle-1(1/15/04)". Matches in the Day Notes will additionally show the day number and date, e.g. "Cycle-11(5/3/03):D15(5/17/03)".

Tapping on a cycle note match in the "Matches" list will display the Cycle Notes frame with the matched note highlighted. Similarly a day note match will display the Day Notes frame with the matched note highlighted.

Preferences

The preferences dialog is reached using the Options/Preferences... menu option.

You can select either the Centigrade or Fahrenheit scale to enter and view body temperature. Switching between the scales does not affect any temperature data already entered; this will be automatically translated to the new scale.

You can also set the cycle length, the number of menstrual bleeding days and the ovulation day to be used for all future projections and as defaults when starting a new cycle.

Hardware Buttons

Many key functions within the application may be assigned to any of the 4 hardware buttons.

For example you could use the right button to switch to the graph view and the button next to it to switch to the calendar.

The actions available for assignment are:

• Default system action
• No action: Nothing happens
• View graph
• View calendar
• View day notes
• View cycle notes
• View statistics
• Show today: Current cycle (or today in day notes view)
• Show next: Next cycle (or day in day notes view)
• Show previous: Previous cycle (or day in day notes view)

The assigned actions will only operate while the application is active.

Technical Notes

Temperature Data

Regardless of the preference to display and enter body temperature using Centigrade (°C) or Fahrenheit (°F) temperature is saved in steps of 0.05°C. This means that any temperature records in the database will remain valid when changing how they are displayed.

Body temperature is displayed either in steps of 0.05°C or 0.1°F. Tapping on the temperature up or down buttons (see Day Notes) will change the underlying data by 0.05°C. As a consequence of this if the Fahrenheit scale is used every 10th tap does not appear to change the temperature shown.

Compatibility

This application is designed to run on Palm OS® version 3.5 and later.

The application is designed to use 16 bit colour, 4 bit greyscale or monochrome display standards.

Backing Up

During a HotSync® the applications database will be backed up as the following Palm Database File:

• PLCycleData.PDB

This will be located on the desktop computer in the Backup directory of the Palm Desktop.

Note that this database will be automatically restored in a HotSync® following a hard reset.

Support

Support from Thompson Solutions Limited
e-mail: thompsonsolutions@btinternet.com