Study finds Apple Watch able to be used as diagnostic tool for sleep apnea, hypertension
Researchers from the University of California San Fransisco in conjunction with the developers of the Cardiogram app have proven that using existing sensors, the Apple Watch can detect sleep apnea and hypertension with a high degree of accuracy, potentially opening up the ability for the device to be used as a long-term research tool for the conditions.
The study sponsored by the University of California surveyed 6115 participants with an Apple Watch through the Cardiogram app. A machine learning algorithm called "DeepHeart" was used to sift through the data for 70 percent of the study participants to diagnose the remaining 30 percent.
"The idea here is that by screening continuously you would identify people with hypertension who might not know they have it," said Cardiogram co-founder and study lead Johnson Hsieh told TechCrunch in an interview. "Thenm you'd guide them through the appropriate final diagnosis, which would be through a blood pressure cuff and then treatment."
Sleep apnea was detected with a 90 percent accuracy. Hypertension was diagnosed with an 82 percent accuracy.
Sleep apnea is a condition where the afflicted can stop breathing in their sleep. An estimated 22 million adults are affected in the U.S., with misdiagnoses common. About 75 million Americans are afflicted with hypertension -- a major risk factor for stroke and heart disease.
The study sponsored by the University of California surveyed 6115 participants with an Apple Watch through the Cardiogram app. A machine learning algorithm called "DeepHeart" was used to sift through the data for 70 percent of the study participants to diagnose the remaining 30 percent.
"The idea here is that by screening continuously you would identify people with hypertension who might not know they have it," said Cardiogram co-founder and study lead Johnson Hsieh told TechCrunch in an interview. "Thenm you'd guide them through the appropriate final diagnosis, which would be through a blood pressure cuff and then treatment."
Sleep apnea was detected with a 90 percent accuracy. Hypertension was diagnosed with an 82 percent accuracy.
Sleep apnea is a condition where the afflicted can stop breathing in their sleep. An estimated 22 million adults are affected in the U.S., with misdiagnoses common. About 75 million Americans are afflicted with hypertension -- a major risk factor for stroke and heart disease.
Comments
Thanks.
I suppose I could buy a second Apple Watch to charge during the day and wear during the night.
Am I the only one petty enough to notice and be bothered by the passive voice in the article title? "... able to be used as ..." seems so awkward. Why not "... can be used as ..."?
Yeah, I'm that guy.
by altering charging habits, it’s easy to sleep with the watch. Just be sure to turn on theater mode at night so you don’t annoy your wife with a watch face flash in bed.
Serious health care professionals have learned to ask for the details and that the results be repeated independently. It's why they only recognize "peer reviewed" reports.
For myself, I am question how well a heart rate monitor could diagnose either apnea or (and especially) hypertension. (However, there is a possibility that the sensors are picking up more than just heart rate). In the meantime, I look forward to Apple adding additional sensors to the watch to measure things such as these and others...
Hypertension is a little more complicated. It is characterized by reduced heart rate variability, and the beats tend to be harder. Strictly, the sensor on the Apple Watch isn't a heart rate sensor, it's an optical blood flow sensor. Heart rate can be derived from the data it records, but so can flow volume.
This study is important to Apple because it provides them with positive feedback that even in its current form & function the Apple Watch has the potential to effectively contribute to the health, wellness, and comfort of its wearers. No doubt that Apple will continue to expand both the range of sensors and sophistication of health applications on the Apple Watch to make it useful for a much wider range of health diagnoses. This provides a focus for the Apple Watch that goes so far beyond traditional watch functions, much in the same manner that the iPhone is so much more than just a phone.
One last word of advice: if you have a concern about sleep apnea do not install the Cardiogram app expecting it to help you diagnose this potentially deadly condition. Talk to your doctor and follow his/her advice about undergoing a sleep study. One critical thing the Apple Watch does not currently measure is blood oxygen levels. When you stop breathing due to sleep apnea your blood oxygen levels plummet - which is extremely damaging to your heart, brain, and other internal organs.
But, as a medical professional, I shudder at the thought of making a diagnosis based on such indirect physiologic manifestations. Essentially, there are a dozen other things that can cause the same effects.
It is why the FDA is so conservative in issuing approvals for medical devices. They need to have reasonable confidence that their results are what they say they are.
It is definitely possible to detect some medical conditions with extremely high confidence based only on indirect evidence. Microsoft published a study (https://blogs.microsoft.com/ai/2016/06/07/how-web-search-data-might-help-diagnose-serious-illness-earlier/) in which they detected pancreatic cancer (5-15% detection rate, 0.001% estimated false positive rate) based solely on a user’s Bing searches. The evidence from this trial (apnea/hypertension detection) needs to be confirmed, of course. That said, right now, it strongly suggests that apnea and hypertension can both be diagnosed with reasonably high accuracy from much less information than previously thought.
The quantified self movement has already yielded an enormous corpus of data from a lot of individuals. This is much, much higher-resolution than the point-in-time tests doctors typically use to diagnose a condition. I would be shocked if we didn’t find things easier to detect than previously thought.
... I would hesitate before erasing that line just because it is being done with an Apple product.
That said: I am enthusiastically supportive of things like Health where real, actual data such as heart rate, steps, distance, time, etc... are stored and can serve as a foundation for promoting health.
... Now what was your point?