With the Apple Watch, one of Apple's intentions has been to take care of the health of its users. Increasingly, the watch includes many functions designed to monitor the health and activity of its wearer. With this new patent, the American company wants to develop medical devices that they are able to follow up in those patients who suffer from chronic diseases, such as asthma.
A new patent from Apple registered under the title "Monitoring system to assess the control of a pathological state", you want to create a series of medical devices in order to be able to carry out an exhaustive monitoring of health. In addition, the conditions surrounding a patient will be recorded with any chronic disease, such as hypertension, diabetes or asthma.
The first step in the system would be to collect data on a patient. Data such as sleep quality or oxygen saturation (new items in a future watchOS), and combine them with environmental factors such as demographics or region. These data could be used to create a 'patient-specific model' for monitoring.
Once the model is generated, the system uses various devices to monitor changes in disease status. These sensors could be placed on and around a user, including wearable sensors or other systems in the user's everyday environment. As an example, for asthma patients. That could include one or more sensors located under the patient's mattress to collect heart rate and breathing data while they sleep. Changes in those data metrics, and their comparisons with previous data, could detect whether a person's chronic condition is changing. That way you can anticipate a possible relapse or worsening.
Being a patent, we do not know if these devices will actually see the light. But if we take into account that Apple recently patented the possibility of collecting and sharing more medical data and the user's environment of the Apple Watch, in case of a fall, we see that Apple also wants to stand out in the field of health.