Learning whether you have a sleep disorder like sleep apnea typically requires what many would likely consider to be an uncomfortable night’s rest, with sensors placed all over your body and even inside your nose.
The Apple Watch can’t replicate a sleep study or diagnose sleep conditions, and it’s not trying to.
That indicates many people may not know they have the disease, which is where tools like Apple’s new sleep apnea notification could potentially help.
Sleep apnea detection is yet another step in that direction.
How the Apple Watch detects sleep apnea Sleep apnea is usually diagnosed through a sleep study or an at-home sleep apnea test.
Still, there’s one Apple Watch sensor that plays a primary role in picking up potential sleep apnea signals: the motion-detecting accelerometer.
The feature works the same regardless of whether you have an Apple Watch with the blood oxygen feature.
The chips inside the Apple Watch Series 10, Series 9 and Ultra 2 are also a large part of what drives the Apple Watch’s sleep apnea detection, Caldbeck said, which is why the feature is available only on those models.
But when it comes to sleep apnea, clinicians like Pelayo hope it’ll be possible to detect it even sooner down the line.
“I really want something to pick up the mild sleep apnea,” he said.
It usually takes what many would consider to be an uncomfortable night’s sleep—sensors positioned all over your body, including inside your nose—to determine whether you have a sleep disorder like sleep apnea.
The Apple Watch isn’t attempting to mimic a sleep study or identify specific sleep disorders. However, Apple wishes to assist individuals in determining whether they ought to consult a physician about obtaining one.
A sleep disorder that causes breathing to stop and restart during the night and is estimated to affect 936 million adults worldwide, sleep apnea is detectable by the new Apple Watch Series 10, as well as the Series 9 and Ultra 2. Approved by the Food and Drug Administration on Monday, the new watch feature measures wrist movements linked to breathing interruptions. With the release of WatchOS 11, it will be available for other watches that are compatible, and it will be shipped with the Series 10 at launch.
The American Medical Association published a 2022 article stating that only 6 million of the estimated 30 million Americans who have sleep apnea—which, if untreated, is linked to an increased risk of type 2 diabetes and other health complications—have received a diagnosis. The fact that so many people might not be aware they have the condition suggests that devices like Apple’s recently released sleep apnea alert could be beneficial.
Furthermore, it required over 11,000 nights of sleep recordings to get it perfect, according to Dr. Matt Bianchi, a research scientist on Apple’s Health Technologies team.
“In order to ensure that we don’t misjudge movements like that, we gather an amazing quantity of ground truth data from a wide range of people who sleep in the lab, at a sleep center, or at home in their natural environment,” Bianchi explained in a video interview with CNET regarding how Apple created the feature.
Health tracking is the main function of smartwatches.
The Apple Watch has undoubtedly contributed significantly to the company’s progress toward its stated goal of improving health. In 2019, Apple CEO Tim Cook told CNBC that the company’s “greatest contribution to mankind” would be “about health.”.
Over the past ten years, the Apple Watch—which was once a specialized, high-end iPhone accessory—has transformed into a comprehensive health monitoring tool that can identify abnormal heart rhythms, determine whether you’ve had a fall, and measure changes in body temperature, among many other health and wellness metrics. An additional step in that direction is the detection of sleep apnea.
Regarding the Apple Watch’s health tracking features, Deidre Caldbeck, senior director for Apple Watch and Health product marketing, stated, “Even after a short period of time, we started to hear from users who were noticing things about their health and fitness that they maybe would not have noticed before.”. Thus, we began tugging at those threads. ****.
Apple is not acting alone; competitors Samsung and Google are also advancing wearable technology with new health tracking features at the same time that Apple makes this announcement. In July, Samsung revealed that its most recent Galaxy Watches will be able to measure symptoms of sleep apnea, and Google’s Pixel Watch 3 can identify a pulse loss. When considered collectively, these updates demonstrate how smartwatches are developing into much more than simple fitness and activity monitors.
“There is no doubt that the primary focus of smartwatches has always been fitness and health,” sent an email to International Data Corporation research director Ramon Llamas. It’s a matter of how far we can delve. “.”.
How the Sleep Apnea is Identified by the Apple Watch.
An at-home sleep apnea test or a sleep study are typically used to diagnose sleep apnea. According to the Cleveland Clinic, a sleep study, also known as a polysomnogram, entails the wearer of sensors to measure brain waves that occur during different stages of sleep, an ECG sensor to monitor heart activity, sensors to detect muscle and eye movement, breathing sensors to monitor airflow, and a pulse oximeter to measure blood oxygen levels. When researching how to use technology to improve the quality of her sleep earlier this year, my colleague Lexy Savvides had firsthand experience with this.
Doctors can work with more nights’ worth of data thanks to wearables like the Apple Watch, which can detect sleep apnea symptoms at home. Additionally, it might serve as motivation for patients to consult their physician before the condition gets worse.
Dr. Rafael Pelayo, a sleep expert and clinical professor at Stanford Medicine, told CNET’s Lexy Savvides, “We should welcome [smartwatches] as tools.”. “You will receive one or possibly two nights if you are given a sleep test. ****.
Complete with an ECG function, the Apple Watch is packed with sensors. Blood oxygen measurement is also available on Apple Watch models sold outside of the US, but it is no longer available on models sold in the US due to a patent dispute with the health tech company Masimo.
But one Apple Watch sensor—the motion-detecting accelerometer—is crucial in identifying possible sleep apnea symptoms. During the night, as you breathe, your chest oscillates. These minute movements are reflected in your arm, allowing the accelerometer on the watch to pick them up on your wrist, according to Bianchi. These measurements show up as breathing disturbances, a new metric that is tracked in the Apple Health app. If you have an Apple Watch with the blood oxygen feature or not, the feature functions in the same way.
According to Bianchi, machine learning algorithms can read out and identify breathing interruptions in which a person either takes shallower breaths or stops breathing for a period of time of twenty to thirty seconds.
According to Caldbeck, the sleep apnea detection feature of the Apple Watch is primarily powered by the chips found inside the Series 10, Series 9, and Ultra 2 models. For this reason, the feature is limited to those specific models. When the watch detects breathing disturbances, an algorithm reviews the data and notifies the user if there are any indications of sleep apnea.
“It’s the capacity to utilize accelerometer data, process that data on the device, and make sure we achieve accuracy and fulfill our performance goals,” explained Caldbeck. Therefore, that combination was absolutely necessary. “. .
However, there are other reasons why you might have trouble breathing at night besides sleep apnea. These include alcohol use, congestion brought on by illness, and sleeping position. For this reason, the Apple Watch waits to send the notification until it detects breathing irregularities over a 30-day period.
For the feature to function, though, you simply need to wear the watch for ten nights or more during that time. The 10-night minimum strikes the ideal mix between gathering sufficient data and being realistic—not everyone wears a watch to bed every night.
“We don’t want to respond to a three-day long weekend that happened by accident or a brief illness,” Bianchi stated. Our goal is to ensure that we’re capturing the true essence of you. “.”.
11,000 sleep-related nights.
Apple collaborated with clinical research organizations and hospital systems at academic medical centers to collect the more than 11,000 sleep data nights as part of the clinical validation process.
In addition, Bianchi claims that this is the largest validation study ever submitted to the FDA for the clearance of a sleep apnea technology. This data was gathered over 1,500 nights of sleep as part of the FDA regulatory process. In addition to these clinical validation procedures, Apple maintains an in-house sleep lab for feature development and prototyping related to its sleep tracking products.
Ensure Apple possessed a sufficiently large and varied dataset to cover all possible scenarios in which the system could malfunction was one of the major challenges.
“Any validation at the clinical level, anything that satisfies regulatory requirements, and the level of confidence we need to say we support this feature are next level,” Bianchi stated.
Even if they don’t get an alert, owners of a compatible Apple Watch can see the nightly breathing irregularities in the iPhone’s Health app. Apple categorizes breathing disturbances as “elevated” or “not elevated,” with an elevated number of disturbances over several nights possibly indicating sleep apnea. However, some breathing disturbances are deemed typical. Along with offering a simple method to export the pertinent data, the notification also implores users to speak with their doctor.
Now that the Apple Watch and other wearables are advanced enough to identify possible health issues, it is especially crucial that Apple communicates and provides context around these readings. According to a research that was published in the Cardiovascular Digital Health Journal in August 2020, wearable technology may be linked to health-related anxiety. The study used the example of a 70-year-old woman who thought that receiving notifications from her watch indicated that her heart was becoming worse. Over a one-year period, she collected 916 ECGs.
Manufacturer of smartwatches Withings is also making an effort to allay this worry; as part of its recently unveiled Cardio Check-Up feature, the company offers clinical evaluations of heart health data from licensed cardiologists.
However, physicians like Pelayo are hopeful that in the future, sleep apnea will be even easier to identify.
“I am in dire need of something that can detect my mild case of sleep apnea.”. Hopefully, that’s where our future lies. “.”.
