Led by researchers from NYU Langone Health, the study featured a smartphone-based app that guides patients with migraine through progressive muscle relaxation (PMR), an evidence-based treatment for migraine in which patients tense and then relax one muscle group at a time.

Published online October 16 in JAMA Network Open, the work shows that the percentage of patients that had at least a five-point improvement in a standard score of migraine-driven disability nearly doubled for those who used the app versus those who did not. The study used the Migraine Disability Assessment Score (MIDAS), a questionnaire that asks about the number of days over three months that migraine caused a person to miss work, school, or social events.