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Apple Watch can help track Parkinson's disease symptoms: study

77 points| gmays | 5 years ago |statnews.com | reply

20 comments

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[+] sradman|5 years ago|reply
The paper Smartwatch inertial sensors continuously monitor real-world motor fluctuations in Parkinson’s disease [1]:

> We developed the Motor fluctuations Monitor for Parkinson’s Disease (MM4PD), an ambulatory monitoring system that used smartwatch inertial sensors to continuously track fluctuations in resting tremor and dyskinesia.

> MM4PD captured symptom changes in response to treatment that matched the clinician’s expectations in 94% of evaluated subjects. In the remaining 6% of cases, symptom data from MM4PD identified opportunities to make improvements in pharmacologic strategy.

[1] https://stm.sciencemag.org/content/13/579/eabd7865

[+] spike021|5 years ago|reply
As someone with Essential Tremor, I wonder if this could be used along with the other sensors in the watch to help figure out when the tremor seems exacerbated or less severe.
[+] ece|5 years ago|reply
The article mentions: "The paper also suggests the tool helped pinpoint people who slipped on medication adherence, as well as cases in which a person might benefit from a modified medication regimen."
[+] e40|5 years ago|reply
How is ET diagnosed separately from PD?
[+] dopu|5 years ago|reply
Anyone have a good resource on understanding the policies that govern the ownership and handling of data collected by an Apple Watch? I quite like that they can be used for tracking sleep, heart rate, and many other health-related items. Ideally, I'd have full control over how these valuable, longitudinal datasets I generate are handled and used. But I'm skeptical that's anywhere near the case.
[+] r-w|5 years ago|reply

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[+] mcavoybn|5 years ago|reply
I'm sorry but when the solution to your research paper is consumer technology sold by the company you work for, you are just advertising not innovating. Nothing about the apple watch itself is particularly useful for this, its just the fact that it goes on your wrist and has an accelerometer plugged into a computer with networking capabilities. (Wow, an accelerometer attached to your wrist can tell if you have tremors! Who knew?!?) The other 90% of the functionality of the watch is totally unnecessary. If apple actually cared they would create a new device for this particular use case.
[+] kergonath|5 years ago|reply
You might have missed it, but they’ve publicised every year the advances in ResearchKit. It’s been around for 6 years now, and has influenced the design of several generations of watches. They have partnerships with various hospitals and universities, and severalstudies that were made based on data from Apple Watches.

You are disingenuous when you reduce the device to an accelerometer with a network chip. But even so, the problem with a lot of clinical studies is not the complex equipment required. Instead, it’s enrolment, and the fact that you have to go to a lab to perform tests and that nothing that happens outside these tests is measured. This could be gait, heartbeat, sleep patterns, or a lot of other things. The fact that people keep their Apple Watches on their wrist all the time, and that it’s easy to enrol and that there are significant data protection measures in places helps with the most complicated aspects of running a large-scale study.

I would suggest reading at least a Wikipedia article before spewing uninformed bullshit.

[+] pwinnski|5 years ago|reply
Apple has an opt-in Research app, and has built relationships with a number of orgs in the US doing medical research, and has added additional sensors based on feedback from those orgs.

There is quite a bit special about the Apple Watch itself well beyond the accelerometer, in software, in hardware, and in the work required to maintain privacy while sharing collective information with organizations devoted to researching diseases.

[+] dhritzkiv|5 years ago|reply
> its just the fact that it goes on your wrist and has an accelerometer plugged into a computer

That's incredibly underselling it as just an accelerometer, but missing the fact that it's not an off-the-shelf accelerometer and that there's a very capable computer inside it (plus an even more powerful computer in a pocket not too far away) to do the heavy data-processing required.

> If apple actually cared they would create a new device for this particular use case.

This theoretical device would have a smaller user base and would also cost an order of magnitude more. The magic of the Apple Watch is that it's a fairly inexpensive (and hence accessible) multi-purpose personal device used by millions.

[+] samatman|5 years ago|reply
You don't actually know this.

You're uncharitably assuming this, without any basis.

Apple's custom silicon, which includes the Watch line, has the best performance / power ratio in the entire business.

That might be important here. Do you know that it isn't? Of course you don't.

[+] acvny|5 years ago|reply
Marketing has reached new levels