Apple revealed various products this year and two of its most anticipated smartwatches: The Apple Watch Series 6 and the Apple Watch SE.
The Cupertino giant is known for its market-defining smartwatches. The smartwatches have a lot of competition in the market, but the two new Smart Watches stand out the most is their optimized optical heart sensor.
One might argue that the Apple Watch has always included an optical heart sensor designed to detect pulse irregularities. The sensor detects signals that indicate serious medical conditions the owners of the devices might not be aware of.
Apple took the health monitoring capabilities of its devices to a whole new level by adding ECG technology to them. It’s clear as day that the key selling point of Apple Smartwatches is their health tracking capabilities.
But this feature might just do more harm than good.
Sources claim that out of 264 patients who said their Apple Watches flags a concerning heart rhythm; only 30 patients got a cardiac diagnosis after their doctor visit. Most of the concerning heart monitor data were probably false positive alerts.
This might not be that harmful. I mean, it’s just a notification, right? A false-positive alert, no matter even though the patient is healthy, can still cause several problems.
Kirk Wyatt, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Mayo Clinic said, “It is hard for a user to ignore an alert that they could have a serious medical condition,”.
They can push patients to get unnecessary health care and cause stress and anxiety. Even though they don’t have any symptoms, they may still feel the need to talk to a doctor about an abnormal notification on their Apple device.
Smartwatches are a useful way for many to monitoring their own health at home. But they are not a complete health care solution.
Apple claims of doing extensive research in developing their heart monitoring system. Most people don’t know that the research is focused on how well the device can detect atrial fibrillation. It is no way an actual screening tool that can aid in the health care system.
Our verdict? A wearable device cannot fully understand the context and nuisances of an illness. At least not for now anyway.
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