Apple Watch Able to Detect Abnormal Heart Rhythm With 97% Accuracy
The Apple Watch's built-in heart rate monitor is 97 percent accurate when detecting the most common form of an abnormal heart rhythm when paired with an algorithm to sort through the data, according to a new study conducted by the University of California, San Francisco and the team behind the Cardiogram app (via TechCrunch).
There were 6,158 participants in the study, all of whom used the Cardiogram app on the Apple Watch to monitor their heart rate. Most were known to have normal EKG readings, but 200 suffer from paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (an occasional irregular heartbeat).
Data from these participants, along with data taken from normal Cardiogram users, was used to build a neural network that could recognize the abnormal heart rhythms solely from data collected by the Apple Watch. As of today, Cardiogram says its algorithm can almost always successfully determine when a patient is in atrial fibrillation.
In order to validate the model, we obtained gold-standard labels of atrial fibrillation from cardioversions. In a cardioversion, a patient experiencing atrial fibrillation is converted back to normal sinus rhythm, either chemically or with a shock to the heart. 51 patients at UCSF agreed to wear an Apple Watch during their cardioversion.
We obtained heart rate samples before the procedure, when the patient was in atrial fibrillation, and after, when patient's heart was restored to a normal rhythm. On this validation set, our model performed with an AUC of 0.97, beating existing methods.
Cardiogram is a startup that's aiming to garner more information from the data collected by the Apple Watch. The study, which Cardiogram has raised funding for, started in March of 2016 and will continue as UCSF and Cardiogram work to refine the neural network and detect other conditions beyond atrial fibrillation.
Cardiogram plans to put in additional work before using its algorithm to start notifying Cardiogram users of arrhythmias. The company needs to conduct further testing to make sure the algorithm works in a variety of conditions and it needs to work on scaling it so it can be used continuously by all Cardiogram users.
The Cardiogram app can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]
Popular Stories
Phishing attacks taking advantage of Apple's password reset feature have become increasingly common, according to a report from KrebsOnSecurity. Multiple Apple users have been targeted in an attack that bombards them with an endless stream of notifications or multi-factor authentication (MFA) messages in an attempt to cause panic so they'll respond favorably to social engineering. An...
At least some Apple software engineers continue to believe that iOS 18 will be the "biggest" update in the iPhone's history, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Below, we recap rumored features and changes for the iPhone. "The iOS 18 update is expected to be the most ambitious overhaul of the iPhone's software in its history, according to people working on the upgrade," wrote Gurman, in a r...
Apple will introduce new iPad Pro and iPad Air models in early May, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Gurman previously suggested the new iPads would come out in March, and then April, but the timeline has been pushed back once again. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. Apple is working on updates to both the iPad Pro and iPad Air models. The iPad Pro models will...
Apple today announced that its 35th annual Worldwide Developers Conference is set to take place from Monday, June 10 to Friday, June 14. As with WWDC events since 2020, WWDC 2024 will be an online event that is open to all developers at no cost. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. WWDC 2024 will include online sessions and labs so that developers can learn about new...
Apple may be planning to add support for "custom routes" in Apple Maps in iOS 18, according to code reviewed by MacRumors. Apple Maps does not currently offer a way to input self-selected routes, with Maps users limited to Apple's pre-selected options, but that may change in iOS 18. Apple has pushed an iOS 18 file to its maps backend labeled "CustomRouteCreation." While not much is revealed...
Apple on late Tuesday released revised versions of iOS 17.4.1 and iPadOS 17.4.1 with an updated build number of 21E237, according to MacRumors contributor Aaron Perris. The updates previously had a build number of 21E236. The revised updates are available for all iPhone and iPad models that are compatible with iOS 17 and iPadOS 17, but they can only be installed via the Finder app on macOS...
With the App Store and app ecosystem undergoing major changes in the European Union, The Wall Street Journal today shared a profile on App Store chief Phil Schiller, who is responsible for the App Store. Though Schiller transitioned from marketing chief to "Apple Fellow" in 2020 to take a step back from Apple and spend more time on personal projects and friends, he is reportedly working...
Top Rated Comments
Me: "Call an ambulance"
Siri: "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."
I think a lot of people are waiting on two big things:
1) Really accurate heart-rate monitoring (getting there)
2) Blood sugar analysis for diabetics.
I have a feeling Apple will get there within a decade, fingers crossed.
The Cardiogram app itself is already on the app store (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cardiogram/id1000017994?ls=1&mt=8) and the deep learning to screen for conditions are coming sooner than you might think. :)
[doublepost=1494535132][/doublepost] Atrial fibrillation is often asymptomatic—Circulation (the top cardiology journal) just published a big report on the evidence for device-based screening of AF:
circ.ahajournals.org/content/135/19/1851.full?ijkey=StzSPk8eljGaP2G&keytype=ref