iPhone & Apple Watch Could Assess Heart Condition Stanford Study Finds

A new study done at Stanford University shows that healthcare providers could assess a cardiovascular patient’s frailty remotely using the sensors on an Apple Watch and iPhone. If you’ve ever had a test done at your doctor’s surgery, you’ll know it’s not ideal. A blood pressure test, for instance, can often result in an unnaturally high reading because the patient is anxious to be in medical surroundings. So, there’s certainly a benefit to taking some measurements at home instead. The study, published by PLOS ONE, equipped 110 patients who were due for procedures relating to the heart, for instance, with an iPhone 7 and Apple Watch Series 3 with a special VascTrac research app and followed for six months. It looked at how a standard test, a six-minute walk test conducted in a clinic visit, compared to the same test completed at home using the VascTrac app. The app would collect data such as step counts in the background. In the six-minute test, a definition of frailty was walking less than 330 yards or 300 meters in the test conducted in-clinic. The VascTrac app was able to assess frailty with high sensitivity (90%) while the same test performed at home and measured in the app had a sensitivity rate that was a little lower, 83%. The rates for specificity were also lower than in the clinical setting, dropping from 85% to 60%. However, these levels are considered high enough to be useful and the passive data collected at home deemed “nearly as accurate at predicting frailty”. The study, which was published this week, concluded that “This finding suggests that frailty and functional capacity could be monitored and evaluated remotely in patients with cardiovascular disease, enabling after and higher resolution monitoring of patients.”There’s much more detail in the report, such as the kinds of cardiovascular interventions the patients in the study were awaiting, and the kind of data collected. This included steps taken each day, steps walked without stopping for more than a minute and total distance walked. The Apple Watch is very accurate at this, especially once you’ve configured it using an outdoor walk or run lasting more than 20 minutes. Remote monitoring is not only less stressful for the patient, it also frees up time for medical professionals and supplements the level of information your doctor has. And since the hardware used is far from the most advanced from Apple, it means the chance that a patient would have easy access to capable products seems high. Before you go, why not sign up for my AppleUnboxed newsletter, bringing you insider information, reviews, tips, comparisons, news and rumors about the Cupertino giant? Out on Wednesdays. In the latest issue: the rumored release date for the iPhone 13, tips and tricks for Apple Notes and the Breathe app reviewed. Plus, new iMac rumors, cool links from around the web and a one-minute review of Apple Watch Series 6.


All data is taken from the source: http://forbes.com
Article Link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidphelan/2021/03/28/iphone--apple-watch-could-assess-heart-condition-stanford-study-finds/


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