Apple has been adding health features to its iPhone and smartwatch, and is now working with Eli Lilly to see if data from the devices can help spot early signs of dementia, according to CNBC.

The report notes that "According to research published this week (see Scribd document below), the two companies teamed up with health-tech start-up Evidation to find ways to more quickly and precisely detect cognitive impairments like Alzheimer’s disease with the help of popular consumer gadgets.

The study, which will be discussed on Thursday at a conference in Alaska, is the first to publicly link Apple and Eli Lilly. Of the 15 authors of the paper, five work for each company with the other five representing Evidation. It’s the latest sign that Apple’s health team is investing in deep medical research with traditional pharmaceutical players.

“With this research, we looked at how everyday behavior data, such as those captured by iPhones, Apple Watches, and Beddit sleep monitors, may be effective in differentiating between individuals with mild cognitive impairment and early Alzheimer’s disease, and those without symptoms,” Evidation co-founder Christine Lemke told CNBC.

More than 6 million people in the U.S. live with dementia, and early detection has been a persistent challenge.

The early-stage study took place over 12 weeks, and included both an 82-person healthy control group and 31 individuals with varying stages of cognitive decline and dementia. Those who participated were asked to avoid taking medications that might impact the results, and each received three Apple gadgets: an iPhone, Apple Watch and Beddit sleep tracker." For more on this read the CNBC report.

The Research paper noted at the top of our report is titled "Developing Measures of Cognitive Impairment in the Real World from Consumer-Grade Multimodal Sensor Streams." Review the Scribd document provided below by Patently Apple for more details.

   Applied Data Science Track Paper by Jack Purcher on Scribd

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