How does the new sleep apnea detection feature work in the Apple Watch?
Apple is constantly adding new features to its smartwatch to help users get the most out of it and use it continuously in their daily lives to be more than just a smartwatch to track time, notifications and fitness, but rather to be their personal assistant in maintaining their health and monitoring any vital signs that may indicate the presence of major health problems. Finally, Apple added a completely new feature to its latest smartwatches, which is the feature of detecting sleep apnea. This feature is available in the Apple Watch Series 10 , Watch Ultra 2 and Watch Series 9.
Here are all the details you need to know about this feature and how it works on modern Apple Watches:
New Sleep Apnea Detection Feature in Apple Watch:
Sleep apnea is a health condition that causes breathing to stop temporarily during sleep, preventing the body from getting enough oxygen and often has the effect of waking a person up from sleep.
Diagnosing this condition can be difficult because it occurs during sleep, and it is now very common, with Apple saying that more than a billion people are affected worldwide.
Apple Watches with new sleep apnea detection feature use a new measure called Breathing Disturbances that leverages data collected by the watch's built-in accelerometer to detect small movements in the wrist that are associated with interruptions in normal breathing patterns during sleep.
Apple Watch collects this data for 30 days, then analyzes it and alerts users if there are signs of sleep apnea of varying degrees, which may be moderate or severe. Users will see high or low readings in the Breathing Disturbances section of the Health app built into iPhones, and they can share this data with their doctor to get information about the next steps to diagnose and treat sleep apnea.
While sleep apnea detection on Apple Watch requires 30 days of data collection, users can see an overview of their nighttime breathing disturbances in the Health app to assess sleep quality, as apnea can be caused by certain medications and poor sleeping position.
Apple says its sleep apnea detection algorithm uses advanced machine learning and a vast dataset of sleep apnea tests from clinical trials. The company validated the algorithm in a clinical study, and every participant the algorithm identified as having sleep apnea actually had the condition.
What health conditions can Apple Watch detect?