Smartwatches Can Help Detect COVID-19 Days Before Symptoms Appear (cbsnews.com) 53
Smartwatches and other wearable devices that continuously measure users' heart rates, skin temperature and other physiological markers can help spot coronavirus infections days before an individual is diagnosed. From a report: Devices like the Apple Watch, Garmin and Fitbit watches can predict whether an individual is positive for COVID-19 even before they are symptomatic or the virus is detectable by tests, according to studies from leading medical and academic institutions, including Mount Sinai Health System in New York and Stanford University in California. Experts say wearable technology could play a vital role in stemming the pandemic and other communicable diseases. Researchers at Mount Sinai found that the Apple Watch can detect subtle changes in an individual's heartbeat, which can signal that an individual has the coronavirus, up to seven days before they feel sick or infection is detected through testing. "Our goal was to use tools to identify infections at time of infection or before people knew they were sick," said Rob Hirten, assistant professor of medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City and author of the Warrior Watch study. Specifically, the study analyzed a metric called heart rate variability -- the variation in time between each heartbeat -- which is also a measure of how well a person's immune system is working.
A business opportunity (Score:4, Funny)
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Chinese registered health experts
Have some bat soup. It couldn't hurt.
HRV (Score:5, Interesting)
I happen to be tracking my HRV already, because it's a good way to assess your readiness for a workout. The problem is that I often have a fairly low HRV on days after a hard ride or workout, because I'm tired and trying to recover. But my heartrate is quite low at the same time, and this seems to hint that your heartrate will become elevated as well (which is something that may also indicate poor blood oxygen levels).
I'm using a free app called 'Training Today' that gives a score from 0-10 indicating how ready you are for a workout, if anyone else is interested in free HRV tracking tools. (Of course, the HRV data is also plain to see in the Apple Health App if you're wearing an Apple Watch.)
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I feel good, exercise. I don't feel good, don't exercise. What could be so hard about that.
An idiots app that absolutely does not detect infection with covid anything because it can not tell the difference between food poisoning, influenza, the common cold, a hangover but baah, baah, baah, sheeple https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] just remember the password and OBEY.
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Because there have been days where I've felt fine and it was terrible, and days where I felt bad but my workout went great. I've been a competitive cyclist and swimmer for a couple decades now, and while sure, you should listen to your body, there are times where you need to tell your body to shut up, or you need to take an external cue to rest. If you're just exercising to stay fit, by all means, your technique is great, but when I'm training for races, it's easy to overtrain and burn myself out.
19 days? (Score:2)
I read that as smartwatches detect it 19 days before symptoms appear...
Am I just getting old, or did that happen to everyone?
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You missed a hyphen. I didn't miss it, but it's an understandable error.
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You reminded me of lost consonants [grahamrawle.com]
I also applaud your keen hyphen observation skills - keep up the good work
I'd rather deal with COVID the old fashioned way (Score:1)
than deal with 24/7 Big Data supervision thank you very much
Re:I'd rather deal with COVID the old fashioned wa (Score:5, Insightful)
than deal with 24/7 Big Data supervision thank you very much
Determining whether you might be contagious is not about you.
(And this isn't "Big Data". What's with the over-use of that buzzword? The Apple Watch is just a watch that connects to your phone and stores the data there. Or did you mean Big Brother? Because since it's all kept local, it's not that either. It's just a tool, use it how you want, or don't.)
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Because since it's all kept local
Aaw, you're so naive. It's so cute.
Seems like overkill (Score:1)
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Well it's still interesting from a research point of view.
And no reason why the technology couldn't be integrated in a cheaper watch (without a fancy display and wifi)
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but in any case it's kind of pointless. They're too expensive to make available enough to have a large impact on the spread of the virus. Was this study funded by watchmakers?
People with the devices might be helped though. I see we've done a 4300 people per day deaths now. We're number 1!
Seems like overpriced. (Score:2)
They're too expensive to make available enough to have a large impact on the spread of the virus.
Someone should invent a process, let's call it...mass production. The cost is spread out, and the more people that buy the lower the costs.
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They're too expensive to make available enough to have a large impact on the spread of the virus.
Someone should invent a process, let's call it...mass production. The cost is spread out, and the more people that buy the lower the costs.
And it doesn't have to be an Apple either. Fitbits are pretty inexpensive.
Yeah, right (Score:2)
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That's the problem. Some people can spread the virus for over a week before showing symptoms.
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First, It says "up to" seven days. For you maybe it would've detected 1 or 2 days earlier. Or maybe it wouldn't have helped you. But some people take more than 7 days to show symptoms. Some even take 10 days or more, so it's not unbelievable that maybe it was detectable by day 3 if monitoring for more subtle symptoms that you might have noticed.
The other thing is that you probably don't know that you were exposed only 4 days before. Unless you and everyone else in your house were completely secluded for the
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Apparently, your heartbeat may become slightly irregular before you're consciously aware of being sick. And not everyone gets symptoms as quickly as you did.
I assume there are other infections that would cause the same effect, but it would still be useful if this will get people tested earlier.
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I knew I had it 4 days after I was exposed. So a smartwatch is supposed to know before I'm even exposed?
Yeah, it would have said hey Bessie sure has a terrible cough!
BEFORE Symptoms appear? (Score:2, Insightful)
Devices like the Apple Watch, Garmin and Fitbit watches can predict whether an individual is positive for COVID-19 even before they are symptomatic or the virus is detectable by tests
So do these watches have some mystic ability to detect it? If not, then I'm pretty sure what these watches are detecting are symptoms, such as heart rate changes. I'm pretty sure you can't have symptoms before you are symptomatic. That's sort of by definition.
Re:BEFORE Symptoms appear? (Score:5, Informative)
There's a big difference between *having* symptoms, and *noticing* you have symptoms.
If the watch sensors and algorithms can spot infection before the infected person actually notices, this could actually be pretty helpful.
A disease that can infect you, but have no noticeable symptoms, but still can infect others, is part of the definition of a "perfect" pandemic. Covid can indeed do just that, which is a bit of a bugger. Surely we all know this by now?
Obviously we should issue everybody with watches with this software immediately!!
Re:BEFORE Symptoms appear? (Score:4, Informative)
It's hard to know if you're joking here. You do realize the research conclusions purported in TFA are impossible.
The claim in TFA is: For people who have no symptoms, and for which no test can detect sickness (meaning they have no virus inside them), they can predict that you will have virus in you in up to 9 days early. This is, of course, absolute BS.
Now, the Stanford study referenced in TFA is open access, you can go read it. In their article, they don't claim anything like what's in the article. They claim to be looking at known symptoms (elevated heart rate and uneven heart rate are known symptoms of being sick with COVID as well as bunch of other things).
(Before we get to their data, there's some very serious statistical chicanery going on as they split their data up by quartile, but draw their graphs and report a p-value as if they're using more rigorous statistics. I've published in this journal, and the reviewers I had would never have let something like that slide by. This is poor science to the degree that they should make a correction to the paper.)
They tested 5262 people. Of that, 32 people ended up testing positive for COVID. Of that, 25 people reported symptoms. Of that last group, they found 16 people who reported symptoms later than their algorithm started flagging events, although it's not clear at all that this would have been actionable, because there was no statistical difference with the healthy cohort.
They also found 15 people sick with something else.
They found no symptoms via smartwatch in the 7 people who tested positive but reported no symptoms.
They found no symptoms via smartwatch in the remaining 5232 people who either didn't get tested, didn't report symptoms, or got a negative test.
That's not exactly great.
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In medical terms, it's by definition impossible for a patient to have a symptom that they don't notice. A symptom is a problem that the patient reports they are experiencing.
Symptom: [cancer.gov] A physical or mental problem that a person experiences that may indicate a disease or condition. Symptoms cannot be seen and do not show up on medical tests. Some examples of symptoms are headache, fatigue, nausea, and pain.
[/pedant]
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I don't think you're appreciating the magic of $300 thermometers.
Turns out humans actually vary a lot from "98.6" but if you read at 99F and develop it a week later then the watch gets the credit. If you develop nothing, well, the subjective qualifiers weren't wrong.
Oh hey, there's even an xkcd for what you can "help detect":
https://xkcd.com/525/ [xkcd.com]
This would be a disaster (Score:1, Interesting)
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Wow. You are so smart. Why didn't they put you in charge of product design? You could've thought of very basic things like looking at day long trends instead jumping to conclusions because one 1 transient spike, or alerting the wearer of the device instead of emailing the CDC directly. How did Apple ever become a success without you?
Re: This would be a disaster (Score:2)
Your meme is severely stale.
Especially if that way of replying fits your own comment just aswell, and could essentially be used as a reply to anything. Showing how useless it is.
Why don't you get a life. Right after puberty's hormones have worn off.
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Reading the summary would have taken you less time than typing out this pile of hysterical balderdash.
Re: This would be a disaster (Score:2)
Wait, how many sock puppets have you got?
You know we can tell you are the same as the above from the categories of words and of figures of speech you use, right?
HRV (Score:3)
I tried a HRV app on the Apple watch but I have problems wearing the watch while sleeping so I didn't get fantastic result. I usually woke up and took off the watch because it annoyed me when I slept, so I got worse sleep while wearing it. I could sort of sleep with the fitbit charge.
It was mostly for fun to try to find the perfect time after recovery(super compensation) to make improvements. oh well.
I was in ICU for 2 weeks with pneumonia in 2018 and was using fitbit at the time. It hit me like a brick, I didn't have HRV data from it but I went through the pulse with my doctor afterwards and it was quite visible the day when I got sick, my resting HR went from 45 to 85 and then 100. it took a month afterwards to get lower and half a year before I was fully recovered.
Re: HRV (Score:2)
Why don't they make ankle things by the way?
I always found that more comfortable with those locker key straps they give you at public pools.
Oh wait, those watches are jewelry for poseurs. Not tools. Nevermind.
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Gives people the impression you're under house arrest.
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Use your critical thinking skills. "Health monitor" is just one of several functions of a smart watch. Viewing notifications, taking a call while your phone is in the other room, or skipping to the next track are all substantially more difficult when the device is attached to your ankle.
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I pity you, I hope you find happiness.
ECG monitors with built-in clock detect illness (Score:2)
Film at 11.
More surveillance (Score:2)
You don't want to get sick and DIE, do you? You should wear a 'smart watch' that tracks all your vital signs as well as your location, who you're calling, what you're Tweeting/Facebooking, emailing, and so on (for contact tracing purposes of course).
Screw you. GET OUT OF MY BUSINESS YOU ASSHOLES.
Re: More surveillance (Score:2)
2031: GET OUT OF MY ASSHOLE YOU BUSINESSES!
_
[filter error: don't use so many caps. it's like yelling.]
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Can? ... How often? (Score:2)
Blond chicken rates?
Or Six Fuckin Sigma?
Smart watch, stupid consumer (Score:2)
Weasel word alert (Score:2)
"Smartwatches Can Help Detect COVID-19 Days Before Symptoms Appear"
"Help"