USA TODAY International Edition
New fitness trackers can warn of heart disease risk
Latest generation of apps, wearables could save many lives
A new generation of apps and wearables is emerging with the ability to monitor vital signs crucial to spotting heart problems, giving us and our doctors powerful new weapons to fight stroke and heart disease.
Last week, Apple revealed it would be testing, along with Stanford Medicine, an Apple Watch app to help spot irregular heart rhythms that could lead to serious illness. And the same day, Silicon Valley start-up AliveCor announced it received FDA clearance for a connected wristband for the Apple Watch. Together, AliveCor’s hardware and software monitor for irregularities, and they produce medical-grade results for physicians to evaluate.
Efforts such as these and others could save lots of lives. And, in this time of spiraling health care costs, they could also save money. Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of Americans, outnumbering all forms of cancer combined, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Together with strokes, they account for nearly three of every 10 deaths in the country. And as the nation ages, that ratio likely will increase.
These new devices aren’t your everyday fitness trackers, which many doctors dismiss as inaccurate. These are clinically accurate: Most either are going through the FDA approval process or, like AliveCor’s SmartRhythm software and companion KardiaBand, already have clearance.
And second, they’re familiar: The devices crank out the same data physicians already record when you visit their offices.
The benefit these devices have over systems in the doctor’s office is they can record data every day — around the clock, in some cases. That affords more insight than readings logged at the doctor’s office once or twice a year.
What’s making this union of wearables and health care possible? It’s a mix of some old tech, and some new. Some borrowed. And some ... well, red.
Red: As opposed to flashing green LEDs on the underside of the Apple Watch, the new Fitbit Ionic and most other heart-rate-monitoring wearables today, these medically-oriented fitness trackers use red light. The LEDS flash the light into the skin, while companion sensors use changes in light reflecting back to calculate pulse rate and other metrics. Like green, red has its own set of benefits and shortcomings. But its key advantage is it penetrates much deeper into the body than green, so it can be used to derive a much richer set of vitals.
SensoGram is using red and infrared light to build a compact, wireless vitalsigns monitor that perches on your finger. The Plano, Texas, start-up turned heads at the Connected Health Conference in Boston in late October with its new SensoScan, which measures blood pressure continually as well as heart rate, oxygenation and respiration. It’s now under review by the FDA.
Borrowed: Like start-up Sensogram, Omron — a household name in blood pressure measurement — is also navigating a new line of wearable blood pressure monitors through the FDA approval process. But Omron is taking a different approach. Omron borrowed the tried-and-true pressure cuff and miniaturized it to fit on your wrist like a smartwatch.You should be able to buy Omron’s Project Zero 2.0 blood-pressure watch late next year, FDA willing.
New: Start-ups such as AliveCor are focusing on detecting irregular heartbeats, or arrhythmia, such as atrial fibrillation, which can lead to stroke. AliveCor’s KardiaBand features an embedded electrocardiogram, or ECG, which is what doctors use to monitor heart activity. Kardia’s SmartRhythm software leans on the Apple Watch’s heart monitor as a first line of defense. If the app sees something suspicious, it sends an alert, telling you to record an ECG rhythm for the doc.
Old: Another start-up, CardiacSense, is also tackling heart arrhythmia with its own wrist-worn device. The Israeli company says it has found a way to produce heart data from the green LEDs and optical sensors on today’s smartwatches that’s as accurate as an oldschool ECG. The company is now presenting clinical trial data to the FDA.
Like the KardiaBand, the CardiacSense device alerts you to record an ECG rhythm at the first sign of trouble.