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One way to detect dementia is by counting the number of times an owner uses the 'Find My Phone/Watch' feature every week :)
You have never seen the cruel long decline and death of a family member
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I know it already knows I can't spell worth a damn.....
Another one.
I hope you never see the cruel long decline and death caused by dementia.
I have
 
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You have never seen the cruel long decline and death of a family member
I’m sorry you had to. We had a deep look at diseases like that in a disabilities class I took. It’s heartbreaking and I hope it can someday be eradicated.

Unfortunately there are ableist, wannabe edge lords who think it’s funny.
 
You lost me at partnering with a pharmaceutical company.
They only do things that sell their particular drug. That's their business.
If you'd said a university or something, maybe I wouldn't have had to dig deeper to see who else was funding it, but this is bad from the word go.

Dementia is a big deal, but pharma can't help yet. This is not the hippy Apple of its roots.

Partnering with Goldman Sachs, the corporation that took over the US Treasury, bankrupted Greece & Italy (just for starters) was the last straw for hippy Apple. Any wonder it wants to bring back the rainbow logo - it's lost the hippy ethic and like diet coke - you're going to drink it just for the taste of it - it's a desperate attempt to look hippy now that it isn't.

Look up Moral Self-Licensing to find out why Cook is so big on social causes, to justify partnering with Goldman & Eli Lilly, allowing the military industrial complex on to Apple's board (Boeing), and who knows what else. One could argue a corporation the size of Apple, these establishment take-overs are inevitable and maybe Cook, like Jobs before him is resisting as much as possible.

But in this case, I don't see any reason to partner with a pharmaceutical company. This is a strike against Jeff Williams becoming the 'product guy' to lead Apple out of the Cook darkness of nickel and dime-ing upgrades, 4 years of iPhone design instead of 2, keyboards that fail still being brought to market years later, and so on.

And if you think this is tinfoil hat – don't ask me about Jobs' objection to the insecurity of Flash, then Kevin Lynch (Mr Flash) being put at the heart of Apple technology.:)
 
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I thought Apple was going to develop a blood glucose monitoring system wit their watch?
Being Type 1 Diabetic having this would be awesome!!
The price of the sensors for the Free Style Libre is outrageous, in my opinion.
Having a sensor that would last longer than 14 days, or 10 days when I tried mine would be good, or a cheaper alternative than what is out there now.
 
Crazy. I mean, to see the advancements that technology is making in the wearables sector is incredible (Which also explains it’s growth). EKG, fall detection, wheelchair capabilities on the Apple Watch and possibly detecting dementia, this is what’s making the future for wearables a ‘must have’ versus what once started primarily as a notification device.

And to all the gripers and name callers out there... (Not you RP)

This IS innovation. The most powerful innovation isn't your tech daddy giving you the laptop of your dreams (though I wouldn't complain if they did). It's stuff being invented that you never wanted until you realized you really needed it.
 
Dementia is a horrible horrible disease that takes every last bit of dignity from you.

That's true of most "natural" ways to go. Any improvement is welcome, but the best you can hope for is to trade one horror for another at a marginally later time.
 
They've lost their mind.
(I hope I didn't type that too slowly).
Any old person wearing an A-Watch now will now be under suspicion that they're concerned they're developing dementia.
"Oh he has that dementia surveillance watch on his wrist".

Old people are not concerned what other people think like teens and 20-something’s are
 
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You don’t have to have knowledge in anything to be an expert on macrumors. I’ve seen at least a couple dozen posters on here who are experts in everything from semi conductor engineering to bank finance to marketing to healthcare. Especially so when their master needs to be defended.
Time for MacRumors grandmasters (the highest league in Starcraft II ladder).
 
Apple Watch is progressively becoming a Universal Tricorder. I can envision a future where Apple Watch is able to make use of multiple sensors to detect irregularities that together via observations only made possible by a device you wear everyday can triangulate every possible disease well before the user exhibits noticeable symptoms.

Blood oxygenation, internal body temperature, blood pressure and blood sugar are the next big checkpoints to getting to that future. The first three seem achievable in the next three editions. Non invasive blood sugar measurement is a work in progress and likely to be achieved by the time the Apple Watch turns 10 (in 6 years).
 
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Blood oxygenation, internal body temperature, blood pressure and blood sugar are the next big checkpoints to getting to that future. The first three seem achievable in the next three editions. Non invasive blood sugar measurement is a work in progressive and likely to be achieved by the time the Apple Watch turns 10 (in 6 years).

I think that would be a bit ambitious. If all the things you envision were simply a matter of getting smaller silicon, then yeah I could see it, but some of these issues are a matter of physics and are currently being addressed by algorithms... which are great when predicting expected responses. I mean an accurate wrist worn heart rate monitor hasn't even been invented yet. Nobody can do that. To get reliable results, you still need a chest strap.

For things like blood sugar, we don't even have truly non-invasive full sized medical devices that can do that accurately much less a miniaturized one that tries to do readings through your wrist.

Body temperature would be highly welcome and I could see that and as unexciting as that may be, I think it'd yield tremendous benefit for some people. Many forms of non-western medicine see body temperature as a key health indicator.

Body temperature is something I've been eagerly waiting for actually. I have a sleep disorder that would be easier to manage with body temperature charts. There were some wearables that tracked body temperature, but they all vanished. I'd guess that they just weren't able to get accurate body temps.

Apple Watch doesn't need to go Star Trek to be a smash success innovation. Baby steps will already allow it to boldy go where no man has gone before. ;) It'll be a smash success if it merely creates a new industry of health monitoring that is ultimately won by someone else 10 years from now.
 
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You know of a “cure” for dementia. Let the NE Journal of Medicine know. Perhaps you’ll win a Nobel prize.
The current idea around development of a cure for Alzheimers Disease (AD) is to start the treatment as early as possible. The reason is that reversing the disease seem difficult. In order to develop a drug for early intervention, you must be able to detect AD early hence the study is important. AD is diagnosed to day using cognitive tests or biomarkers (biochemical and imaging). It typically require unpleasant sampling from the spine or MRI (one of these test easily pays for Apple Watch) or interaction with specialists. Non-invasive, cheap and automated techniques is huge, also for drug development.

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31 samples?
Pseudoscience?
Marketing?

No-just an explorative study focusing on the method rather than the clinical results. The next need to be much larger and more stringent.
 
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I used to work at a retirement home and it was sad to watch some of the elderly folks not even remember their own families. I am all for anything that can maybe lessen the effect of this awful disease!
 
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You lost me at partnering with a pharmaceutical company.
They only do things that sell their particular drug. That's their business.
If you'd said a university or something, maybe I wouldn't have had to dig deeper to see who else was funding it, but this is bad from the word go.

Dementia is a big deal, but pharma can't help yet. This is not the hippy Apple of its roots.

Partnering with Goldman Sachs, the corporation that took over the US Treasury, bankrupted Greece & Italy (just for starters) was the last straw for hippy Apple. Any wonder it wants to bring back the rainbow logo - it's lost the hippy ethic and like diet coke - you're going to drink it just for the taste of it - it's a desperate attempt to look hippy now that it isn't.

Look up Moral Self-Licensing to find out why Cook is so big on social causes, to justify partnering with Goldman & Eli Lilly, allowing the military industrial complex on to Apple's board (Boeing), and who knows what else. One could argue a corporation the size of Apple, these establishment take-overs are inevitable and maybe Cook, like Jobs before him is resisting as much as possible.

But in this case, I don't see any reason to partner with a pharmaceutical company. This is a strike against Jeff Williams becoming the 'product guy' to lead Apple out of the Cook darkness of nickel and dime-ing upgrades, 4 years of iPhone design instead of 2, keyboards that fail still being brought to market years later, and so on.

And if you think this is tinfoil hat – don't ask me about Jobs' objection to the insecurity of Flash, then Kevin Lynch (Mr Flash) being put at the heart of Apple technology.:)
You don’t see any reason to partner with a pharmaceutical company? Who do you anticipate will spend hundreds of millions of dollars to develop and bring to market a drug to treat those who are diagnosed—hopefully at a very early stage when it is presumably easier to treat. There is nothing on the market except drugs to treat some of the symptoms.

Universities are often where discoveries are made that will eventually become effective therapies. But such research is often funded through partnering with pharmaceutical companies, in particular through license agreements that enable drug companies to access the IP developed at those universities. (Government grants are also critical to fund research, especially early in the early R&D phase, when there’s little to no data yet available that would warrant investment by pharma.)
 
I am not sure they can detect, but I am very confident that they can and will contribute on people to get one.





Apple has partnered with pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and health startup Evidation to determine whether data collected from the iPhone and Apple Watch can be used to detect early signs of dementia.

A research paper published this week and shared by CNBC lists researchers from Eli Lilly, Apple, and Evidation Health. The paper, called "Developing Measures of Cognitive Impairment in the Real World from Consumer-Grade Multimodal Sensor Streams," explores whether sensor data and activity info from smart watch devices can be mined for "physiological and behavior signatures of cognitive impairment."

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According to the abstract, 31 people with cognitive impairment and 82 without cognitive impairment were monitored over a 12-week period, with 16TB of data collected. The study claims that the data was able to be used to differentiate people with early signs of cognitive impairment from those who were healthy.

People who had symptoms of cognitive decline typed more slowly, typed less regularly, relied more heavily on support apps, and sent fewer text messages. The study did not reach long-term conclusions as more analysis is needed.

In a statement to CNBC, Evidation co-founder Christine Lemke said that data collected from the iPhone, Apple Watch, and Beddit sleep monitors was used for the study. Apple acquired the company behind the Beddit sleep monitor back in 2017.Early detection of dementia is important because an early diagnosis can allow for better management of symptoms and quality of life improvements even though the progression of the disease can't be stopped. According to the World Health Organization, 50 million people around the world have dementia, with close to 10 million new cases surfacing every year.

Article Link: New Study Aims to Determine Whether iPhone and Apple Watch Can Detect Early Signs of Dementia
 
I had a fantastic comment to make, then I forgot it, now I don't why I'm typing in this box, maybe if I click Post Reply it will trigger something... Hey, what's that over there.
 
It’s exciting to think that in the near future the Apple Watch could detect and help identify so many health issues for early diagnosis.

Keep up the health research Apple!
 
The Apple Watch 5 is about taking healthcare to the 21st century.



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Having had relatives suffering from this disease I'm quite interested in diagnosing dementia (inherited dementia is seriously worrying me).

I'm a little bit skeptic that a wearable device can detect early signs of dementia. Glad to be proven wrong.

It's a damned disease (well, like all diseases...) – a bastard one, I'd say. Researchers are still figuring out what is precisely causing the neural deterioration. It's tricky to find the cause, let alone find a cure.
 
The cynic in me says this sponsored “research” is nothing more than marketing/PR puff.

If Apple wants serious credibility with the AW in health, they should throw everything at blood glucose monitoring.
 
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