It turns out that the Apple Watch’s motion sensors can be a useful tool for Parkinson’s patients and their doctors. The FDA has approved Rune Labs to use its software in conjunction with the Apple Watch to track symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. Reuters today. The San Francisco-based digital health startup has developed software for watchOS that can detect Parkinson’s such as tremors, involuntary or slow movements, stiffness and poor balance. There are smartphones and other forms of remote monitoring of Parkinson’s disease but this is the first software developed for the Apple Watch to be cleared by the FDA for movement disorders.
Since the Apple Watch Series 4 was first released in 2018, the wearable has been able to do this hard falls and provide advanced activity metrics. That same year, the company added a movement disorder API to its open-source ResearchKit. the door for developers to create watchOS apps to track Parkinson’s and other diseases. As a rune lab the company is the first company to use the API for commercial purposes.
Rune Labs’ watchOS app will give doctors access to patient movement data over time, which can further supplement the information they get from you . Rune Labs also notes that Apple Watch tools are not capable of giving patients a full picture of their condition. “Of course, there are limitations to Apple’s movement disorder kit: tremor and dyskinesia are just two symptoms in Parkinson’s disease, and the classifiers themselves are not yet perfect,” wrote Brian Pepin, founder of Rune Labs, in last year’s a .
Apple has spent a lot of time and money expanding and updating the watch’s health and fitness tracking capabilities, and there are many more to come in the future Update. Earlier this month, so did the FDA turned off watchOS’ AFib History feature, which monitors irregular and extremely fast heartbeats, will be released in the upcoming watchOS 9 update.
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