(March 10, 2016) -- Apps, the buzzword for quick and easy ways to access information, are known to give their users challenges. Apps can track progress in fitness and weight loss. They can even be fun. But now medical groups are finding apps to be critical in research.
Apple got into medical research with a kit. It's a tool that Apple made available to NYU's Langone Medical Center that allows the collection of information from potential research subjects or patients. NYU Langone's Dr. Paul Testa says the Apple app has been revolutionary.
"Within the first few weeks of us having the app in the Apple App Store, we had 700 downloads," Testa said. "That level of participation would have taken many years."
Testing patients using apps is also much easier. Duke University's autism and beyond app uses the iPhone's self-facing camera to monitor a child's facial expressions as they watch certain videos. A Parkinson's study uses the phone's touchscreen to deploy a tapping test and the microphone to detect vocal variations. And NYU's concussion tracker uses the iPhone or Apple Watch's accelerometer to ensure patients complete a daily walk at the appropriate speed. The screen and keypad test how well they can recall digits backwards.
Mount Sinai has an asthma health app, which uses the phone to collect so-called passive data.
"We have a GPS specific environmental air quality data which we collect passively with no effort by the participant," says Dr. Yvonne Chan.
CNET's Dan Ackerman says all this data collection brings privacy concerns.
"I think privacy and security always is a concern especially with medical information," says Ackerman.
Critics say the inability to verify things like a participant's age is also a problem, but Testa and Chan say the apps benefit accuracy far more than they could hurt it.
4 Your Health is presented by American Senior Communities
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