Apple has done a great job of creating a brand new field of tech, namely that of wearables. The Apple Watch provides a wide range of features, with its health features usually standing out because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up informing people about impending crises.
Researchers working at Duke University in collaboration with Northwestern University have revealed that the Apple Watch can be especially useful with a particular chronic illness known as sickle cell disease. With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that this Apple product could help users predict when they will get a painful flare up so that they can prepare accordingly.
Sickle cell disease causes a wide array of painful symptoms. Chief among them is something known as vaso-occlusive crisis. This can cause the most severe pain of all, but knowing about it in advance could make it cause less suffering than might have been the case otherwise.
Researchers hooked up test subjects with sickle cell diseas to Apple Watches and asked them to provide pain scores whenever there was a flare up. The various types of data collected by the watch allowed researchers to predict the pain well beforehand, and that enabled them to greatly reduce it with all things having been considered and taken into account.
In spite of the fact that this is the case, more work will need to be done in order to determine the true efficacy of the Apple Watch in this regard. It will be interesting to see what kind of a role this wearable tech can play in the health industry. If the findings of this research end up proving accurate, it could be a game changer for Apple’s entire business model since it could become a critical component in an essential service.
All in all, the Apple Watch is clearly bringing a lot of new value to the table. This is despite people criticizing it as a superfluous new product when it was first launched for consumers.
Read next: Ad Revenue Hits 5 Year Low, Here’s What That Means for the Industry
Researchers working at Duke University in collaboration with Northwestern University have revealed that the Apple Watch can be especially useful with a particular chronic illness known as sickle cell disease. With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that this Apple product could help users predict when they will get a painful flare up so that they can prepare accordingly.
Sickle cell disease causes a wide array of painful symptoms. Chief among them is something known as vaso-occlusive crisis. This can cause the most severe pain of all, but knowing about it in advance could make it cause less suffering than might have been the case otherwise.
Researchers hooked up test subjects with sickle cell diseas to Apple Watches and asked them to provide pain scores whenever there was a flare up. The various types of data collected by the watch allowed researchers to predict the pain well beforehand, and that enabled them to greatly reduce it with all things having been considered and taken into account.
In spite of the fact that this is the case, more work will need to be done in order to determine the true efficacy of the Apple Watch in this regard. It will be interesting to see what kind of a role this wearable tech can play in the health industry. If the findings of this research end up proving accurate, it could be a game changer for Apple’s entire business model since it could become a critical component in an essential service.
All in all, the Apple Watch is clearly bringing a lot of new value to the table. This is despite people criticizing it as a superfluous new product when it was first launched for consumers.
Read next: Ad Revenue Hits 5 Year Low, Here’s What That Means for the Industry
