It’s unclear how many watches Apple has sold, and there’s no way to tell how many of those watch buyers also have epilepsy, but Johns Hopkins researcher Nathan Crone, an associate professor of neurology in the School of Medicine, said the EpiWatch app will reach “orders of magnitude above” the audience a typical epilepsy study would. In fact, Apple announced in an official press release today that ResearchKit is being used in new studies for conditions like melanoma and autism.
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“We’re honoured to work with world-class medical institutions and to be able to provide them with tools which ultimately might help our customers lead healthier lives”, said Jeff Williams, Apple’s senior vice president of operations.
Third, the autism study will use the iPhone’s front-facing camera to detect developmental issues via emotion detection algorithms to track how a child reacts to videos shown on screen.
The epilepsy study uses an app for the Apple Watch, developed by Johns Hopkins University, to see if seizures can be detected.
The data gathered for the study by the app-including physiological changes, altered responsiveness, and other characteristics of recurrent seizures-will be used by researchers to better understand epilepsy, to develop new methods for (and determine the role of technology in) monitoring and managing the disorder.
The goal of ResearchKit is to provide a new, convenient, user-friendly and potentially revolutionary funnel of untapped case data for scientists, doctors and academics.
Beginning Thursday, a ResearchKit app called “Autism & Beyond” is being offered from the Apple App Store for use on iOS devices. People who use those apps must consent to their data being used for research purposes, a process which can be long and drawn out in a physical research setting but quick and painless in an app.
The app is likely to be among the first of many research and medical trackers to monitor minute-by-minute symptoms from everything from multiple sclerosis to heart and metabolic conditions like diabetes. The program is part of an initiative with Sancy Leachman, director of the melanoma research program at Oregon’s Knight Cancer Institute, to combat skin cancers. For epilepsy and melanoma patients, logging information and answering survey questions and seeing ResearchKit’s pool of respondent results might mean feeling less alone with your ailment.
There are new generic active task modules in the framework as well. (NASDAQ:AAPL) came up with the ResearchKit to allow users contribute to the research in health and medicine.
Shares of Apple closed yesterday at $110.21. Year to date, the stock is down nearly 1% while in the last one-year, it is up nearly 16%.
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As Apple looks to grow its place in the enterprise, the health industry is sensible place to start – the IT-enabled healthcare market is expected to be worth over 0bn by 2020. Out of 37 analysts who cover the stock, 27 suggest a Buy rating, 9 suggest a Hold and one recommends to Sell the stock.
