For you, what is the reason for wearing an Apple Watch? Is it to master physical activity data, or want to know the heart rate status?
Apple provides users with continuously updated health status checks through Apple Watch’s heart health functions such as high and low heart rate notifications, cardiac fitness levels, arrhythmia notifications, and the ECG app. But in fact these data can help users better understand their own health conditions, and have the potential to open the door of discovery for the research and medical communities.
To further advance discoveries that improve health at scale, Apple launched the Investigator Support Program. Through the program, Apple Watch devices are provided to researchers to help them break new ground in health research, including the scientific understanding of the heart.
Rachel Conyers and Claudia Toro, senior pediatric oncologists in Melbourne, Australia, have spent their careers caring for children in tertiary pediatric oncology clinics and conducting toxicity studies related to childhood cancer treatment at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. Together, they study the effects of therapy on heart rhythm and try to find innovative interventions.
Toxicity in cancer treatment can lead to various cardiac arrhythmias such as the potentially life-threatening long QT syndrome. Long QT syndrome causes an irregular heartbeat that prolongs the time it takes for blood to flow through the heart. Because of the predisposition to long QT, children undergoing cancer treatment typically have screening 12-lead ECGs at least once a week, Conyers said. However, outpatients also need a way to monitor heart rate.
Conyers studied the Apple Heart Study and thinks it might be important in pediatrics. They used to think that cardiotoxicity was something that happened 10 years after treatment. But newer cancer treatments, such as certain inhibitors or immunotherapies, are now known to cause cardiac arrhythmias within 48 hours of ingestion, so there’s a big gap between what’s known about toxicity and what actually happens.
In the coming months, Conyers and her team at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute will begin studying the sensitivity of the Apple Watch’s ECG app with 40 children and adolescent patients. The team will use this as a starting point to find ways to allow patients to take an ECG anytime, anywhere. With these analyses, the team hopes to better understand the reality of cardiotoxicity and identify potential opportunities for intervention.
In addition to research on pediatric applications, the Apple Watch may also have applications in how smoke affects heart health. California, USA has experienced multiple devastating wildfires in 2020 and 2021. So-Min Cheong, an associate professor in the Bush School Department of Public Service and Administration at Texas A&M University who studies the social and health impacts of environmental disasters and climate change, saw an opportunity to study the effects of wildfire smoke on the heart health of individual firefighters.
Why would you want to take advantage of the Apple Watch? General health advice or existing interventions were not good enough for me, Cheong explained. People are unique. Everyone is different when it comes to health, and I wanted to learn more.
Through her connections in the research community, Cheong learned that the Apple Watch could help her get the health information she needed. She said a colleague of hers at Stanford University shared an experience with the Apple Watch, which is known for its accurate heart rate. I’ve always wanted to be able to use sensors to do more non-invasive analysis of individuals and get more accurate health measurements.
Next month, Cheong, along with Brian Kim and Marco Perez of the Stanford Medical School, will begin equipping firefighters with Apple Watches to study the effects of wildfire smoke on heart health. As many as 200 firefighters will be involved in the study in areas where wildfire season begins in spring in Texas and summer in California.
The study plans to monitor heart rate and rhythm, sleep, blood oxygen, activity data, etc. with Apple Watch. Firefighters will also wear air quality monitors and conduct surveys on sleep, activity and symptoms related to wildfire smoke.
on the other handAccording to European epidemiologists, the incidence of atrial fibrillation in the European Union is expected to double by 2060. Atrial fibrillation is a common heart rhythm irregularity that, if left untreated, can have serious effects, such as increasing the risk of stroke or heart failure.
At the University Medical Center Amsterdam, Sebastiaan Blok, Director of Smart Healthcare (eHealth) at the Netherlands Center for Cardiology, and his colleagues are exploring ways to detect atrial fibrillation early. The researchers developed a randomized controlled study as part of a larger initiative called HartWacht, the first reimbursable smart healthcare concept.
About 300,000 people in the Netherlands have been diagnosed with atrial fibrillation, says research team member Nicole van Steijn. But it is estimated that an additional 100,000 people may not know they have the condition because they are asymptomatic. The study plans to enroll more than 300 patients over the age of 65 who meet atrial fibrillation risk thresholds. Half of the participants (the intervention group) wore the Apple Watch for at least 12 hours a day.
Blok said the Apple Watch is a widely used and reliable consumer wearable device, which is an ideal device to integrate into our research to learn more about how we can integrate it into the larger health system.
(Image source: Apple)
