The Apple Watch Series 4.
The Apple Watch Series 4 could help diagnose stroke risk in the future thanks to an upcoming study by Apple and Johnson & Johnson.
The Apple Watch Series 4's ECG feature, which can be used to detect AFib, will be used in conjunction with an app from Johnson & Johnson to determine whether the diagnosis of a leading cause of stroke could be accelerated.
Paul Stoffels, Johnson & Johnson’s executive vice president and chief scientific officer, said “the goal is to identify early on AFib and prevent stroke by combining the physical know-how from Apple and what we have from the medical and scientific know-how.”
Paul Burton, who is a cardiologist and Johnson & Johnson's VP of medical affairs for internal medicine, shared that the Apple Watch Series 4 "has a very very good detection rate" and “the study has the potential to show that there is a lot more atrial fibrillation out there in the real world in older people than we ever imagined, and if you use a tool like an Apple Watch to detect and funnel people to care, you can really drive down stroke risk in those patients.”
Scheduled to begin later this year, the multi-year study is limited to people who are 65 years of age and older and wear the Apple Watch Series 4 in the U.S. The goal of the study is to collect aggregate data from the participants. As the study is controlled and randomized, individual patients are not tracked and their privacy is respected.
The Apple Watch Series 4 has been credited for saving the lives of two users after it alerted them to AFib heart condition. Apple CEO Tim Cook recently shared in an interview with CNBC that health might actually turn out to be the company's most important contribution to mankind.
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