Why the study?
Screening for atrial fibrillation may be effective, but there is no consensus on the optimal method because available tools are either invasive or not cost-effective.
Are smartwatches feasible and accurate for large-scale atrial fibrillation screening?
Are smartwatches feasible and accurate for large-scale atrial fibrillation screening?
Smartwatches represent a feasible, accessible, and potentially scalable approach for atrial fibrillation screening.
May support scalable AF screening; leaves open need for prospective validation before clinical adoption.
Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common arrhythmia and poses a substantial economic burden due to associated thromboembolic complications. Screening for AF may theoretically be effective, but there is no consensus regarding the optimal screening method because the available tools are either invasive or not cost-effective. Recently, smartwatch industry has received a surge of interest for this purpose by introducing technologies such as photoplethysmography, artificial intelligence, and actual electrodes taking an electrocardiogram to measure and analyze heart rate and rhythm with relatively acceptable accuracy. Combined with other features such as ease of use and connectivity, smartwatches can potentially be used for large-scale AF screening and might eventually replace the current gold standards. In this review, we discuss the feasibility of this approach and summarize the current evidence on AF detection with smartwatches.
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Tajrishi et al. (2019) studied this question.
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