Smartwatches are useful to get a general overview of one’s health metrics, but Samsung has announced some technological advancements which could allow its phones and watches to warn about early signs of Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia.
In a blog post, the South Korean tech giant said its researchers have “developed digital biomarker technology that tracks changes in cognitive function by analyzing multimodal data from smartphones and wearables – including app usage, typing speed, messaging patterns, call frequency, sleep and voice.”
The tech giant went on to say that since wearables and smartphones capture detailed information about a user’s body and habits, they can easily help understand routine changes with “remarkable high sensitivity.”
Referring to prior studies, researchers at Samsung said that these digital biomarkers can help analyse one’s cognitive state and easily track changes. For example, recalling and repeating short sentences can help understand how a person’s short-term memory-related brain region works, while fluency and accuracy can help determine one’s language abilities. Similarly, social media and messaging app usage and call frequency can also provide insights into how the brain functions.
Since these are the most commonly affected in case of Alzheimer’s disease, they can be used to determine and warn users if they are showing early symptoms of Alzheimer’s. The tech giant also expanded two of its studies, with the first one focusing on analysing smartphone keyboard typing patterns, whereas the second one used Galaxy Watches to keep track of walking patterns and check for cognitive decline.
These studies ranked within the top seven per cent of papers presented at the International Conference of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ (IEEE) Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS) in Copenhagen, Denmark. Samsung says both of these studies are “comparable to hospital-based dementia screening tests.”
While Alzheimer’s detection won’t be coming to the next Samsung phone or watch since it is still in early stages, your Galaxy phone and smartwatch may be able to warn you about cognitive decline sometime in the coming years.
© IE Online Media Services Pvt Ltd
