
Large-Scale Assessment of a Smartwatch to Identify Atrial Fibrillation - areoform
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1901183
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abraae
For some years I have tracked my AF using a Polar chest band, which dumps
heart rate records into my phone via bluetooth. Then I ship it to a server in
influxdb and render it with grafana.

It's all very non-medically approved but I have found it super useful to see
the benefits of exercise (in my case anyway) in managing and somewhat taming
my out of rhythm periods. I can get an idea how hard to push my heart before
it goes out.

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tjohns
Can you actually visualize the heart rhythm using a Polar band? For some
reason, I always thought they only sent the pulse rate.

Or are you able to detect AFib using pulse rate alone?

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abraae
Yes, it is clearly obvious just from pulse rate when my heart goes out of
rhythm.The rate suddenly spikes and becomes highly variable. It's just as
obvious when it drops back into rhythm. For me, that's typically a few minutes
or hours after it goes out.

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Despegar
This is the study Apple did with Stanford. It's based on the
photoplethysmograph (PPG) sensor from the pre-Series 4 Apple Watches.
Presumably the new Apple heart study announced will also use the ECG in the
Series 4 and later [1].

[1] [https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/11/apple-launches-
three-...](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/11/apple-launches-three-
innovative-studies-today-in-the-new-research-app/)

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Merrill
You can check the waveform with one of these: [https://www.amazon.com/EMAY-
Portable-Monitor-Software-Compat...](https://www.amazon.com/EMAY-Portable-
Monitor-Software-Compatible/dp/B072DVN9GV)

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saagarjha
This seems to have been part of the Apple Heart Study?

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antipaul
Yes. Abstract talks about iPhone and funding by Apple.

Here is Apple Newsroom [https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/03/stanford-
medicine-ann...](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/03/stanford-medicine-
announces-results-of-unprecedented-apple-heart-study/)

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appleflaxen
does anyone know how informed consent took place for this study? it seems like
it would be required, but it also seems really difficult to do at this scale.

i tried to find a mention of it in the abstract or the clinicaltrials.gov
entry, but was unable to find it.

