Breathe Easy
A few years ago, one of my good friends at work received an Apple Watch as a birthday gift from her kids. She loved it, as it allowed her to see texts, check the weather forecast, and even make phone calls. After a couple of days of wearing it, however, her watch informed her that she may be suffering from atrial fibrillation.
At first, she dismissed it as a fluke, but after her kids convinced her to see a doctor, her watch was right – she was diagnosed with AFib. The Apple Watch was actually the first smartwatch to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for detecting AFib.
The watch uses a technique called photoplethysmography (PPG) to plot the time between heartbeats. Using its algorithm, it can then identify an irregular pulse and AFib. In addition, the watch helps monitor the frequency of AFib in people with the condition and can share that data with health care providers.
As amazing as that is, last month the FDA also approved the Apple Watch to detect sleep apnea.
I’ve mentioned in previous articles that I suffer (or more accurately, my wife suffers) from my sleep apnea. I would snore loudly and continuously – until I would stop breathing entirely for long stretches. Because of this, my wife strongly encouraged me to see my doctor. After being diagnosed with sleep apnea, I was fitted with a continuous positive air pressure, or CPAP, machine. It works great, and now everyone sleeps better.
I’m grateful my wife forced me to see my doctor because left unchecked, sleep apnea can increase the risk of heart disease, stroke, AFib, high blood pressure and even dementia. According to the American Heart Association, an estimated 1 billion people worldwide suffer from the condition, most of whom are undiagnosed.
A big reason many sufferers are undiagnosed is because they don’t have a caring spouse to notice the symptoms. That’s why the Apple Watch may again be a life saver. According to the FDA’s approval notice, the watch’s sleep apnea function, dubbed Breathing Disturbances, is not a diagnostic tool, but rather an over-the-counter device designed to assess watch-wearers’ risk of sleep apnea. Apple says it is a metric that acts as an “intelligent guardian for users’ health.”
The watch has an accelerometer, which is a device that measures vibrations. According to Apple, it detects “small movements at the wrist associated with interruptions to normal respiratory patterns” during sleep. Every 30 days, Apple Watch analyzes Breathing Disturbance data and alerts those users with a consistent pattern of sleep interruptions to visit a physician for possible diagnosis of sleep apnea.
Not only is the Apple Watch an amazing device to improve wearers’ health, but Apple’s AirPods have gotten in on the health game, too. The AirPods Pro 2 received FDA approval as over-the-counter hearing aids for users with mild to moderate hearing loss. Again, the tech-health development of over-the-counter hearing aids will have a huge impact, as approximately 30 million Americans suffer from mild to moderate hearing loss.
My mom actually first told me that she heard about headphones that worked with your cell phone to double as over-the-counter hearing aids. When she said she might want a pair of the headphones, I asked her, “what kind is it?” She replied, “About 6:30.”

Reg P. Wydeven

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