Apple Watch

[Stucoo]

Hi,

I know the Apple watch has been discussed before but I found the following article interesting from an American cardiologist

medium.com/s/story/im-a-hea...

[MarinaT]

Very interesting! I agree with most of it. I do find my Kardia is handy for monitoring my AF and sending the traces to my EP. However, if I had not been diagnosed with AF I would not use any monitoring device. Tech can persuade us of many things.

[Hidden]

Hmmm, he concedes that early detection of AF is good? You don't say! He's worried about the 10% who may think they have AF in error and go to their doctors, but surely it's better to be safe than sorry?

He seems to be concerned about the burden of work to his colleagues here... "All medical procedures carry risks"? I'm not sure that the tests you're given to detect AF could be called especially risky, my goodness, unless you fall off the seat while they're being given! Methinks he's over-egging this. Maybe he's in the pay of Samsung

[doodle68]

I like Dr Mandrola I think what he is saying here is that everyone has variations in their heart rate but that doesn't mean they have an arrhythmia.

The Apple watch could prompt the 'worried well' to swamp doctors with concerns making treatment for genuine patients harder to obtain.

A quote from the article...

[quote Dr Mandrola...To put this into perspective, let’s use a round number of 1 million watch owners. We know that about 1 percent—or 10,000 people—will have AF, and 990,000 will not have AF. If the watch is wrong 10 percent of the time, that means nearly 100,000 people will be falsely diagnosed with AF.

Sending hundreds of thousands of wrongly diagnosed people to the doctor scares me. In addition to needless anxiety and costs, this is hazardous because while some doctors will simply reassure the patient, many other doctors will order tests. Since all medical interventions come with risks, many people will suffer harm from unnecessary tests and procedures.]

....remember this article comes from the USA and I know from reading previous articles that Dr Mandrola has concerns with some doctors there 'overtreating' patients.

Best advice for initial monitoring for arrhythmia is something being adopted here it the 'Know your pulse campaign'

heartrhythmalliance.org/aa/...