According to the results of a study* conducted by the University of California, San Francisco and the app, Cardiogram, Apple Watch can detect the most common abnormal heart rhythm with 97% accuracy.
From TechCrunch:
The study involved 6,158 participants recruited through the Cardiogram app on Apple Watch. Most of the participants in the UCSF Health eHeart study had normal EKG readings. However, 200 of them had been diagnosed with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (an abnormal heartbeat). Engineers then trained a deep neural network to identify these abnormal heart rhythms from Apple Watch heart rate data.
Each year, more than 100,000 strokes are caused by an abnormal heart rhythm called atrial fibrillation – the most common abnormal heart rhythm responsible for 1 in 4 strokes. It’s pretty amazing to think that soon there will be technology available on our wrists that can identify and warn us of abnormal heart rhythms, including atrial fibrillation.
*I’m proud to have participated in the Heart eHealth study and am currently participating in the mRhythm study, the goal of which is to compare the heart rhythms gathered by the FDA-approved AliveCor monitor against those from the Cardiogram App/Apple Watch to assess its validity and accuracy in detecting arrhythmias.
via TechCrunch