Technical Overview and Evaluation of Heartune App: Mapping Music to Heartbeat for Recreational or Medical Purposes (Whitepaper)

Abstract

This paper aims to verify the feasibility of utilizing the novel application Heartune as a supplemental treatment for Autism, Alzheimers, Depression/anxiety and developmental delays using passive music therapy. The studies and meta-analyses discussed within this whitepaper illustrate the ability of music therapy in general to benefit the wellbeing and behavioural tendencies of those diagnosed with the aforementioned illnesses, and hence the results obtained by this whitepaper justify the utilization of Heartune as a source for the supplemental treatment for over 100 million patients worldwide. Music therapy has been proven to help several children with developmental delays and Autism especially considering the behavioural changes caused by music therapy. Moreover, the therapy has led researchers to conclude that within the average duration of a song ~3 minutes, the user’s heartbeat can change up to 12%, indicating that the application can be utilised to change the heartbeat and hence the user's mood up to a certain extent. The concluding remarks do state that the application is complementary to the current treatment of the patients and does not in any manner propose a complete recovery from the given illness but proposes to reduce the impacts it has on the lives of the patients.