Smartwatches are great for noticing heart health trends, but a Maryland doctor says users need to understands the technology’s limits and shortfalls and when a visit to your doctor may be needed.
A smart watch may be under your Christmas tree this week. The nifty gadgets are advertised as a tool to help you stay healthy.
But can smart watches be trusted to look out for your heart? A Maryland cardiologist said the tech can monitor heart rate variability, absolute heart rate and its trends as well as heart rhythm.
“Smart watches are fantastic screening tools, but they are not diagnostic tools,” said Dr. Minhal Makshood, a cardiologist with MedStar Montgomery Medical Center. “Ultimately, they cannot substitute your physician.”
The watches can screen for changes in heart patterns that don’t always present symptoms right away.
“They’re great for noticing trends,” she said. “And then bringing that data, if there’s any abnormality, to your doctor for clear diagnosis, because they are not ultimately, medical grade devices.”
Some changes could warrant a visit to your doctor, she said.
“If your smart watch is telling you that at rest, your heart rate is increasing,” Makshood said. “If there is abnormal response to exercise, or even if it’s flagging irregular heart rhythm.”
The watches could make a great gift for people who have heart disease, high blood pressure or loved ones with risk factors for heart disease such as diabetes, high cholesterol or sleep apnea.
“Those patients are at risk of developing things like atrial fibrillation,” she said. “That’s an abnormal heart rhythm that is pretty common and when untreated, can lead to blood clot formation and increased risk of stroke.”
But the smart watches have some shortfalls. Makshood said certain data collected by the tech could be inaccurate.
“You need to understand caveats, like blood pressure assessment, oxygen saturation may not always be accurate,” she said. “You can get false alarms depending on motion, depending on skin contact during exercise, all these are sensitive to the changes that you see in your watch.”
And when shopping for a smart watch, there are certain data points the devices measure that are more helpful than others.
“If the watch specifically tells you your heart rate, heart rate trends, if it tells you about heart rate variability, response to sleep and exercise,” Makshood said. “And if it helps tracking the heart rhythm with a single lead ECG, which the Apple Watch allows. That is really useful information.”
The Apple Watch was approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the detection of atrial fibrillation.
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