The partnership between the tech giant and the pharmaceutical company, although tenuous, illustrates how boundaries continue to blur between the traditional healthcare industry and outside players. Dementia, which affects roughly 47 million people across the globe, costs $1 trillion worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. Early testing for the condition is sporadic and, when conducted, it's often not sensitive enough to detect early stages of mental decline, creating an opportunity for tech companies like Apple to see whether they can turn a profit. The "rich, longitudinal information" from wearable and mobile consumer devices can be "mined for physiological and behavioral signatures of cognitive impairment and provide new avenues for detecting [mild cognitive impairment] in a timely and cost-effective manner," researchers wrote in the paper. The team included five authors from Apple, five from Eli Lilly and five from Evidation. Data was collected from a slew of platforms including an iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad and a Beddit sleep monitoring device, then stored on a HIPAA-compliant Evidation platform. Researchers had access to the data through a secure network called a VPN before modeling. Apple bought sleep tracking company Beddit in May 2017. The initial results are promising, but researchers stressed they're only a "starting point" for further studies on using the consumer gadgets to predict cognitive decline, which includes Alzheimer's disease. The Apple Watch already has a slew of health features, including menstrual cycle tracking and heart rate and EKG monitoring. Although the company stresses the wellness and preventive care benefits of the tech, early results are mixed. It's's unclear whether wearables like the Apple Watch or popular fitness tracker Fitbit really improve the health of their owners, but a number of payers are offering the tech to their beneficiaries. The list includes CVS-owned Aetna and potentially a number of privately-owned Medicare Advantage plans. Additionally, as the site of care moves increasingly to the home, sensors that predict falls, monitor voice quality for sickness, and (potentially) screen for dementia could be lucrative for manufacturers and other healthcare players.
Apple and Eli Lilly have partnered with healthtech start-up Evidation for an early-stage, 12-week study assessing whether Apple's technology could help detect signs of cognitive decline. Data was collected via iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad and Apple-owned Beddit's sleep monitoring device, with initial results suggesting the devices could identify behaviours including increased reliance on helper apps. The study, which is being conducted in collaboration with Stanford University, will be published later this year by the journal Nature Communications.