Apple has announced a handful of new ways the Apple Watch is being used by researchers to “explore new frontiers in heart health/” The company says that upcoming projects include using the Apple Watch ECG app with children and adolescents, measuring the heart health of firefighters, and much more.
New research studies for Apple Health heart health features
In the coming months, Dr. Rachel Conyers and her team at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Australia will explore the “sensitivity of the Apple Watch ECG app in 40 children and adolescent patients.” Currently, the ECG app is cleared for use in adult patients.
In the coming months, Dr. Conyers and her team at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute will begin with researching the sensitivity of the Apple Watch ECG app in 40 children and adolescent patients. From there, the team will look for ways for patients to take their ECGs wherever they are, whenever they’re able. With those insights, the team hopes to better understand the reality of cardiac toxicity and identify potential opportunities for intervention.
At Texas A&M University, associate professor Dr. So-Min Cheong will team up with Stanford Medicine’s Marco Perez to “study the impact of wildfire smoke on heart health.”
Next month, Dr. Cheong at Texas A&M University and Drs. Brian Kim and Marco Perez at Stanford Medicine will begin equipping firefighters with Apple Watch to study the impact of wildfire smoke on heart health. Wildfire season begins in spring in Texas and summer in California, and up to 200 firefighters in these locations will join the study.
From Apple Watch, the study plans to monitor heart rate and rhythm, sleep, blood oxygen, activity data, and more. Firefighters will also wear an air quality monitor and complete surveys related to sleep, activity, and wildfire smoke-related symptoms.
At the Amsterdam University Medical Centers, Dr. Sebastiaan Blok are using the Apple Watch to study ways to detect atrial fibrillation earlier:
As part of their study, they plan to enroll more than 300 patients over the age of 65 who meet a risk threshold for AFib. Half of the participants — the intervention group — will wear Apple Watch for at least 12 hours per day.
As part of the group’s study design, participants are expected to take an ECG once every three weeks, or if they begin feeling symptoms. If the participant receives an irregular rhythm notification, the researchers will connect with the participant and instruct them to take an ECG and share the results.
Within three weeks of the study, researchers were able to identify a participant with AFib in the intervention group who wasn’t experiencing any symptoms.
Apple also touts its ongoing Investigator Support Program, which is designed to provide researchers with Apple Watch, “enabling them to break new ground in health research, including the scientific understanding of the heart.” The efforts unveiled today represent the “cutting-edge work of health researchers around the world who are using Apple Watch to study the heart like never before.”
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