Smartwatches Help Detect Abnormal Heart Rhythms 4x More Often In Clinical Trial 12
A clinical trial found that seniors at high stroke risk who wore an Apple Watch were four times more likely to have hidden heart rhythm disorders detected than those receiving standard care. The researchers noted that over half the time, these smartwatch wearers with heart rhythm problems hadn't shown any symptoms prior to diagnosis. From U.S. News & World Report: Later editions of Apple Watches are equipped with two functions that can help monitor heart health -- photoplethysmography (PPG), which tracks heart rate, and a single-lead electrocardiogram (ECG) that monitors heart rhythm. "Using smartwatches with PPG and ECG functions aids doctors in diagnosing individuals unaware of their arrhythmia, thereby expediting the diagnostic process," said senior researcher Dr. Michiel Winter, a cardiologist at Amsterdam University Medical Center in The Netherlands. "Our findings suggest a potential reduction in the risk of stroke, benefiting both patients and the health care system by reducing costs," Winter said in a news release.
[...] Smartwatches are much easier than other wearable devices for detecting irregular heart rhythms [...]. These other means require people to wear sticky leads, carry around bulky monitors or even receive short-term implants. Lead researcher Nicole van Steijn, a doctoral candidate at Amsterdam UMC, noted that wearables that track both the pulse and electrical activity have been around for a while. "However, how well this technology works for the screening of patients at elevated risk for atrial fibrillation had not yet been investigated in a real-world setting,"she said in a news release. The findings have been published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
[...] Smartwatches are much easier than other wearable devices for detecting irregular heart rhythms [...]. These other means require people to wear sticky leads, carry around bulky monitors or even receive short-term implants. Lead researcher Nicole van Steijn, a doctoral candidate at Amsterdam UMC, noted that wearables that track both the pulse and electrical activity have been around for a while. "However, how well this technology works for the screening of patients at elevated risk for atrial fibrillation had not yet been investigated in a real-world setting,"she said in a news release. The findings have been published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Re: (Score:3)
And no doubt this will continue the trend of medical systems tied to the cloud. There should be laws passed that medical systems MUST give you the option to keep data 100% local to be given to a medical professional by YOU at a time, place and method of your choice. From blood glucose monitoring to CPAPs to heart monitoring and everything in between, It should never be mandated that you have to use cloud systems and it should NOT have be a binary choice of either using lower technology devices or using the
Anecdotal but (Score:5, Interesting)
My spouse has felt for some time she had some type of arrhythmia. In office ECGs never detected anything. She has a Samsung watch (not the latest version) that detects abnormal heart patterns. It pops up with 'you have AFib'. Meh, figures it's bogus. During one of her episodes, she initiates an ECG, AFib is the result. At a regular doc visit she mentions it to her PCP. They open up the app, find the displayed data, and doc concurs; she has AFib. They do a 24 hr monitor and confirm AFib. In conversations with her PCP and the cardiologist the docs confirm that they're seeing people with smart watches that do, in fact, have things like AFib that are confirmed on further testing. This seems to be a real thing. I'm sure there are false positives and likely false negatives so it would be good to have actual clinical data but in the absence of real studies, if you have one of these that pops a message, see your doc.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah. AFib is episodic. So wearing a monitoring device continuously has a better chance of catching it.
I suffer from a "false positive" problem. No symptoms of AFib other than an irregular heartbeat. But that's a leftover from breathing/heartbeat control I learned during sniper training. And still subconciously use as a relaxation technique. If I wear a continuous monitor, it picks this up. But if I go to the doctor's office, I can conciously not do that, so I test OK.
Re: Who paid for the Clinical Trial (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It is in the Acknowledgement section of the paper: supported by the "Bob Vlake Foundation" https://bobvlakefoundation.nl/ [bobvlakefoundation.nl] (some guy with money who opened his own non-profit). Apple loaned the hardware.
I got Samsung and it detects AFib nicely... (Score:2)
I can take a pill or go to a doctor. Usually office ECG confirms it.
The technology is still quite rough but in couple years it should work great.
Apple Watch gave me sporadically a-fib warnings (Score:4, Informative)
There are definitely real advantages to this technology on the whole, although you have to be careful about letting it stress you out if you're prone to that (which I can be).
My watch was giving me a-fib warnings a couple times a week. So I started using the ECG function a couple times a day, which also occasionally warned about the result showing atrial fibrillation. I went to my primary care provider, who did an EKG that (automated) said "probable a-fib" (doc wasn't 100% convinced it was specifically a-fib, but as she said it's not her specialty). So, I got referred to a cardiologist.
The specialist looked at the watch ECGs as well as the one my doc ran, and said something like "no this looks more like organized atrial tachycardia than disorganized atrial fibrillation" - I don't really know what that means, other than the former doesn't require you to go on blood thinners. Ended up doing a 30 day monitor study - which also reported no a-fib, and tachycardia 1% of the time. However the echocardiogram they also ran showed some aortic enlargement, which a lot of times doesn't get caught until much later (if at all... both of which are bad outcomes).
To reiterate - don't ignore the warnings, follow up with the doc! The watch is probably correct as far as identifying there's some issue that needs attention.
False positives vs false negatives (Score:2)
There are two ways tests can mess up. False Positives means the test falsely thinks you have the disease.
False negative means it missed you having the disease.
This article only discussed false negatives - how the watches have fewer false negatives. (asleep on guard) It does not discuss how many people were told by the watch they have the disease when they don't. (cry wolf)
Sometimes false positives matter a lot more than false negatives - particularly for:
1) Very rare diseases
2) No/poor treatments for the
Great! Can I get one without the surveillance? (Score:2)
Yeah... I didn't think so.