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Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Patients Are Helping Doctors Understand Asthma By Using iPhones
Since an asthma app built with Apple’s ResearchKit went live six months ago, patients are reporting that they’re exercising more.
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Six months ago, Apple unveiled ResearchKit, an open-source software platform that helps iPhone users participate in clinical trials. The premise: People all over the country would download apps that periodically ask about their health, and scientists would study their answers. Given that there are more than 94 million iPhones in use in the U.S., ResearchKit was touted as a way to conduct clinical studies of potentially unprecedented size and scope.
Today, a team from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai revealed data that — while preliminary and not published in a peer-reviewed journal, as is standard in scientific research — suggests that the program may be working as intended. This group, along with app developers at LifeMap Solutions, were the forces behind an app for patients with asthma — one of the first five ResearchKit apps released in March.
Some 50,000 people downloaded the app and 8,600 of them enrolled in the study. Of those, about 2,000 use the app regularly, according to researchers. About 87% of users report living outside New Jersey and New York, where Mount Sinai is located (participants in traditional studies usually live close to where the study's being done). In addition, participants tended to report having severe asthma.
One of the most surprising findings: Patients have on average reported exercising more over the last six months, researchers said. While it's true the scientists have never personally witnessed these workouts, they say the participants' iPhones back up their claims. The devices' motion sensors continuously collect data on the user's walking, running, and other physical activities, provided that the user is carrying the phone or wearing a fitness tracker that feeds data into the phone. And the phones showed a significant increase in steps over the same time period.
"We capture a patient's vital signs at the doctor's office maybe once a year or every two months," Dr. Yvonne Chan, director of personalized medicine and digital health at the Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology at Mount Sinai and principal investigator of the ResearchKit study, told BuzzFeed News. In contrast, with the app, "all of a sudden you could literally have millions of data points on their blood pressure — or whatever we're measuring — and for the first time we can capture the nuances and the fluctuations that occur from seconds to minutes to hours that have never been seen before. It blows my mind a little bit what we're able to do now."
The app reminds participants to take their asthma medications, notifies them about air pollutants in their area, and prompts them to keep a daily diary of their triggers, symptoms, and attacks. For patients, Chan said, the result of these combined interactions may be "greater insight into their own disease process," better management of their asthma, and better capability for exercise.
Like with any study, there are limitations. Only people who can afford iPhones, iPads, or iPod touches can use ResearchKit apps. So far, Chan said, participants skew toward being male and college-educated, with reported incomes of at least $60,000.
In the future, participants' electronic medical records may be built into the app so their doctors can see and react to their asthma attacks instantly, Chan said. Her team is currently testing an integration with Epic, the electronic medical record provider, with some Mount Sinai patients.
The Icahn School's asthma app is the first ResearchKit team to release preliminary findings. MyHeart Counts, which tracks heart health, expanded in August to users in Hong Kong and the United Kingdom. In June, a team at the University of California, San Francisco, launched The PRIDE Study to identify and study lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer health issues. More than 14,000 people have enrolled since late June, researchers told BuzzFeed News.
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Tesla's Model X Is Finally Here
Falcon wing doors and a very fancy air filter.
Tesla
It's been 3 years since Tesla released a new car, the apparently better-than-perfect Model S. On Tuesday night, Tesla CEO Elon Musk took the stage at the company's Fremont, California manufacturing plant to introduce its next-generation electric car — the Model X.
"It's important to show that any type of car can go electric," said Musk. "We did it with the sports car, the sedan, and, now, we're going to show it with an SUV."
The biggest change in the Model X from previous Teslas is size. Considerably larger than its predecessor the Model S, the X is a crossover car with three full rows of seats and entirely redesigned "falcon wing doors," which open vertically, kind of like a Delorean. It also comes with all-wheel-drive, like the latest version of the Model S, which scored 103 out of 100 in a Consumer Reports test published earlier this year.
Tesla
There seems to be little Tesla hasn't thought of in terms of vehicular perks and tricks. The Model X's front doors can open automatically. Its windshield is simply enormous. It has a front console that can charge nearly any kind of phone. The back seats automatically lean forward to make it easier to access third row of seats; they also have space under them to store bags and cargo without interrupting legroom. Those "falcon wing" doors? They can open to a near vertical position if you end up parked in a spot so tight you only have a matter of inches to open them. And then there's The Model X's extraordinary air filter. To Musk, that's a safety feature, because pollution "really affects life expectancy." It is, from the looks of things, a very fancy air filter. Musk likened it to "a hospital room in a car."
Like all Tesla cars, the Model X is first and foremost a luxury vehicle. It's fast (0-60mph in just 3.2 seconds); it's expensive ($130,000 to start), and it's exclusive (if this is the first you're hearing of the Model X, sorry, you're not getting your hands on one anytime soon).
The Model X may also be Tesla's last luxury car for a while. If Musk follows his previously laid out plan, Tesla's next vehicle will be aimed squarely at the mass market. Likely to debut sometime in 2016, the Model 3 is expected to feature a more mainstream-friendly price tag of $35,000.
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