Apple promises a revolution in medical research
Tap the screen and breathe
Svetlana Yaroshevskaya, Mednovosti
Apple on Monday, March 9, showed several products at once: an ultra-thin MacBook laptop, the long-awaited Apple Watch and an updated Apple TV set-top box.
In addition to devices, a new ResearchKit platform was introduced, which is designed to revolutionize medical research and help prevent diseases (Now everyone can do their part to advance medical research).
A well-known problem of clinical research is the formation of a sample. Usually, doctors in search of volunteers hardly collect relatively small groups of subjects. In an Apple video introducing ResearchKit, Dr. Kathryn Schmitz from the University of Pennsylvania tells how more than 60,000 letters sent out asking to participate in the study allowed only 305 women to be recruited.
The distribution of flyer invitations is often carried out through university campuses, which leads to an excessively homogeneous composition of samples. Apple proposes to solve this problem by turning iPhones into a medical research tool and attracting data from hundreds of millions of users of all ages and lifestyles.
Apple Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams said that ResearchKit was developed in collaboration with 12 leading research institutes:
The ResearchKit platform will be available to developers in April, and today its first five applications were presented, which will become channels for transmitting medical information from iPhone users to medical scientists. Each application is dedicated to a specific disease: diabetes, asthma, Parkinson's disease, breast cancer, cardiovascular diseases. All of them are already available for download.
The applications contain information about institutions conducting relevant research and video messages from doctors explaining their goals and objectives. Apple smartphone users will be able to download the application and register using an electronic signature, after which they can immediately start testing using electronic questionnaires and iPhone sensors. Also, in order to support research, you can share with scientists the data of the Health application – that is, information about age-height-weight, indicators of physical activity, sleep, diet, basic medical measurements (temperature, pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate).
The Asthma Health app is designed for people with diagnosed asthma. With its help, you can record and track the dynamics of symptoms, the use of inhalers, visits to the doctor, monitor medication intake. It also contains instructional videos on the technique of using inhalers and tips for relieving symptoms. The main feature of the application will be the use of geolocation services to warn about areas with particularly polluted air and recommendations about clean places.
The Parkinson mPower Study App includes a set of tests for the severity of symptoms of Parkinson's disease. One of the tests consists of short touches of the touch screen during the allotted time (20 seconds) at maximum speed alternately with two fingers. Information about the resulting number of touches will be sent to scientists. Another test is balance when walking and sitting. The gyroscope of the iPhone in the pocket will record the deviations of the body from the vertical axis, and instructions on the number of steps and the duration of sitting will be given to the user through headphones. Another short test is to pronounce the sound "Aaaaa" for as long as possible. The iPhone microphone will record the result, taking into account the duration and intensity of the sound. The application also contains a memory test.
GlucoSuccess is an application for diabetes research. Patients with diagnosed diabetes and prediabetic condition will be able to share their glucose measurements, keep a food diary and synchronize activity data.
MyHeart Counts is an application for the study of cardiovascular diseases that collects data on activity and diet, and allows you to calculate the risk of heart disease and the "age of the heart" of the user using information about blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
The Share the Journey app is designed to investigate the effects of breast cancer chemotherapy and the symptoms that persist for a long time after the end of treatment.
All of the listed applications are designed for residents of the United States. The data will be sent to doctors, bypassing Apple itself. Each user signs an agreement on how his information can be used by researchers. However, lawyers believe that any data exchange with the application is far from communicating with a doctor in terms of security, since it is not protected by the law on the confidentiality of medical information. Jennifer Geetter, a healthcare lawyer at McDermott Will & Emery LLP, expressed her opinion in a conversation with Bloomberg about the possibility of using user health information for advertising purposes.
The company stated that participants will be able to receive feedback on their health status immediately, without waiting for the end of the study and the publication of materials. If problems are found, it is suggested to consult with your doctor. Independent experts emphasize the need to be skeptical of medical advice applications.
ResearchKit is an open source system, and Apple expects to turn it into a huge crowdsourcing platform. Ideally, scientists will not only be able to independently create an application for their clinical research, but also greatly simplify data collection and processing of results.
A small step for the iPhone, a big bow from all medical humanity.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru10.03.2015