The University of California, Los Angeles announced yesterday the launch of an Apple-backed study that will use the tech company's devices to measure how sleep, physical activity and heart rate relate to depression and anxiety.
The three-year effort launches this week. It will recruit 150 UCLA Health patients for its pilot phase, the university wrote in an announcement. Another 3,000 participants...
When Apple vice president of technology Kevin Lynch announced at WWDC last week that Apple Watch would add an automatic handwashing-detection feature in its next update, many people naturally assumed the feature was prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic – a public health emergency that has strongly underscored the importance of handwashing.
Not so, Lynch told MobiHealthNews in a recent interview. The...
At the opening keynote for WWDC2020, Apple’s virtual developer conference, the company announced a few additional health and fitness capabilities for the Apple Watch — though the event was relatively light on health content, especially compared to previous years.
Sleep tracking arrives at last
One such feature — sleep tracking — has been a notable omission for the wearable ever since it was first...
Two medical research organizations have kicked off new efforts this week that seek to use consumer-health wearables to identify or event predict the onset of disease.
The first is the DETECT (Digital Engagement & Tracking for Early Control & Treatment) Study, headed by the Scripps Research Translational Institute. It combines heart-rate, activity and sleep data collected through a range...
The past few days have seen 9to5Mac publish a torrent of new features it has spotted within the leaked code of Apple’s next firmware update, iOS 14. While the majority of these details have to do with interface customization, parental controls and the like, two new functionalities will be of particular interest to competitors already offering digital wellness tools.
The first is blood oxygen-...
Apple and Johnson & Johnson announced this morning the launch of their new digital health study exploring the impact of Apple’s devices and a study-specific engagement program on cardiovascular outcomes among the Medicare population.
First announced in early 2019, the Heartline Study — which also names Evidation Health as a collaborator — is now enrolling seniors aged 65 years or older who...
The accuracy of wearables employing photoplethysmography (PPG)-based heart rate sensors may vary significantly between specific devices and activity types, but these sensors’ performances do not appear to be significantly affected by the skin tone of the wearer, according to a new study published in NPJ Digital Medicine.
The investigation, conducted by Duke University researchers among 53...
A handful of fitness and workout chains will begin doling out monetary rewards to members who have connected their Apple Watches or other Apple-branded services to the partner company’s digital ecosystem, according to the Cupertino tech company.
As part of the newly unveiled Apple Watch Connected program, Crunch Fitness, Orangetheory, YMCA and Basecamp have kicked off incentive programs with...
On Apple and patents. A New York University School of Medicine cardiologist is unhappy with Apple Watch’s heart rate irregularity detection feature, which he claims in a new lawsuit infringes his own patent for atrial fibrillation detection technology. Filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York on December 27, 2019, the suit describes Dr. Joseph Wiesel’s invention and his...
Much like its predecessors, 2019 was yet another year in which Apple furthered its push into the healthcare market. Although headlined as always by the health tracking features of its consumer wearables, the company has also embraced a number of other projects that align its interests with long-time industry players and — in the words of its healthcare leaders — empower and democratize health for...
