The new Apple Watch 4 offers a built-in app with an electrical heart

The new Apple Watch 4 offers a built-in app with an electrical heart rate sensor heralded as the latest advancement in the field of health. The sensor can theoretically take an electrocardiogram (ECG) of the users, detecting abnormalities such as a rapid or skipped heartbeat in their hearts’ rhythms, typical signs of atrial fibrillation (AFib), a common type of heart arrhythmia, which if not treated can lead to a stroke. The upside of this feature is two-fold according to Apple. Firstly, the data captured by the app, in theory, can help its users and their health care providers to better understand the condition at hand. Physicians of patients with identified heart problems can monitor from a distance how their patients are functioning at all times. Similarly, a patient can gain at least some rudimentary insight into his/her heart health without needing to wait for a scheduled ECG report. Secondly, with such data, the device can help in, the otherwise impossible, early detection of heart problems in people who are unaware of any such issues. This early warning is probably the more significant advantage - it could enable a person to take preventive measures early on and thereby lead to a reduction in possibly fatal heart strokes by indicating such possibilities.

However, there are certain unanswered questions hidden behind these claims. Firstly, the people most likely to use the watch are the younger, healthier, and wealthier people – a group that is the least likely to be at risk of heart disease. Secondly, a significant concern is a false positive. False positives are generated when a healthy person gets a positive result for a disease on a screening test. Data collected by the Stanford Heart study for 266 people who got an “irregular rhythm” notification on the watch indicates that most of such notifications were false positives. Such false positives could lead to further unrequired testing – thus costing money and time, and worse, causing unnecessary anxiety and therefore, have raised doubts on the practical utility of the data collected by the app despite the brave boasts made by the company.

Although the American Heart Association has welcomed the app in Apple Watch 4 with great enthusiasm, it is cautious in not officially endorsing it. There are other functions of the watch that are probably useful and even fun. However, it’s delusionary to believe that a watch will help a user manage his/her heart health, let alone help lose weight or exercise more for that matter.

1. Which of the following is true for a person for whom a screening test indicates a false positive result for a particular disease?

A. The person is unaware that he/she is at a high risk of contracting that particular disease.
B. The person is not suffering from the disease for which the screening was done.
C. It is highly likely that the person is af~icted with that particular disease.
D. It’s an alarm being raised by the screening test since the person is completely healthy.
E. The person does not need to undergo any more tests to be completely sure of being disease-free.

2. Which of the following statements is the author most likely to agree to?

A. The new Apple watch is not worth investing in given most of its latest add-on features are completely useless.
B. Even though the new app may provide some data points regarding a person’s heart health, such data should be taken with a grain of salt, considering its unreliability.
C. Typically, people who are sick should have a negative screening result and people who are well should have a positive result.
D. People wearing the new Apple watch will not need to get a follow-up ECG done since the heart app will be capturing data similar to that captured by a regular ECG.
E. Physicians should not pay heed to the data captured by the heart-monitor app when managing their Physicians should not pay heed to the data captured by the heart-monitor app when managing their patient’s health.

3. Of all the new features that the new app offers, which of the following does the author believe to be most useful?

A. Enable early detection of heart health problems for people who are unaware of any issues with their heart
B. Provide additional data to users to help them better understand the condition of their heart.
C. Empower physicians to monitor their patients remotely
D. Help people lose weight by imposing a healthier eating regimen.
E. Indicate that people need to see a doctor in case of an emergency.