La health it has become a cross-cutting axis in which to work with mobile devices. Apple knows this and for years tools and certain technologies have been introduced to monitor the health of the user on their devices. An example of this is the introduction of a system to perform electrocardiograms in the Apple Watch Series 5. Last year, with the Apple Watch Series 6, it was introduced an oximeter to be able to measure oxygen saturation in the blood. A study has revealed that The effectiveness of this measurement from Apple's smart watch is strongly correlated with measurements from commercial oximeters.
A study reveals the effectiveness of the Apple Watch Series 6 oximeter
The study has been published in the prestigious journal Nature The 23th of September. It is an article published with the name: «Comparison of SpO2 and Heart Rate Values on Apple Watch and Conventional Commercial Oximeters in Patients With Pulmonary Diseases ».
The experiment involved 100 patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or interstitial lung disease (ILD). These diseases of the respiratory system require a control of blood oxygen saturation because both high and low levels are detrimental to the control of the pathology. That is why most of these patients have commercial oximeters at home.
The study tried to verify the effectiveness of the Apple Watch Series 6 oximeter and heart rate monitor in taking this value, correlating it with the values obtained with conventional heart rate and saturation meters. Finally, the result showed that the measurements of the watch were practically the same as the measurements of both sensors, concluding the following:
Our results indicate that Apple Watch 6 is a reliable way to obtain heart rate and SpO2 in patients with lung disease under controlled conditions. The advancement of smartwatch technology continues to improve and studies must be conducted to assess accuracy and reliability in various types of diseases.