Just two months after the CEO of Apple Tim Cook said that the company's greastes invention would be connected to health, a study provides the public the first look at how that vision of Apple is beginning to form.
The analysis that is unprecedented, known as the Apple Heart Study, is said to team up with cardiologists at Standford University and they are studying around 400,000 people. The aim of the company and the doctors is to learn whether the Apple Watch and the gadget's heart-rate sensor could pick up the irregularities of a person's heartbeat properly.
The early glimps at the work said that it can, but of course there are setbacks.
The researchers are said to have scheduled a presentation of the summary of the study at the American College of Cardiology. It is sponsored by Apple and is lined with the school's annual meeting on Saturday in New Orleans. The full study has not been published yet.
According to the research, the Apple watch appeared to be capable of recording and picking up on the abnormalities of the heart-rate, and these are linked with serious condition called atrial fibrilliation or afib. This condition may be common but it could be fatal. This condition can increase a patient's risk of having a stroke or heart failure.
"The study's findings have the potential to help patients and clinicians understand how devices like the Apple Watch can play a role in detecting conditions such as atrial fibrillation, a deadly and often undiagnosed disease," Mintu Turakhia, the study's lead author and an associate professor of cardiovascular medicine at Stanford, said in a statement.
The research gives a hopeful insight at the overall power of the Apple Watch, as it can help to improve the health of many, there is also a potential for the gadget to overburden the current healthcare system. This could happen if the gadget tells people that they have health issues even if they do not.
Apple is not the only technology giant that has its eye on health and fitness. In the past few years, tech companies such as Aphabet, Fitbit and Facebook have made an effort to detect illnesses and help prevent them, whether it is by picking up on a person who may have suicidal risks or helping diagnose a condition like afib or sleep apnea. Still, some ailments that are common, serious but preventable, are still difficult to diagnose solely based on gadgets and applications.
Other experts who reviewed the latest study of Apple can see the strengths and the weaknesses in how the gadget was done. Some of the strengths include the gadget and the study being done in collaboration with a univerisity like Standford, which is well-respected worldwide. Also, they included a lot of people during their experiement and it took them years to complete the presentation. The study was also made to be kept separate from Apple even though they were the ones who funded it.
