Apple Watch Might Not Determine All People With Undiagnosed Hypertension

(HealthDay News) — The Apple Watch hypertension notification function can establish adults with undiagnosed hypertension; nevertheless, a substantial proportion of people with hypertension could obtain no alert, based on a examine revealed on-line Feb. 9 within the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Jordana B. Cohen, M.D., from the Perelman School of Medicine on the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and colleagues examined the potential influence of the Apple Watch hypertension notification function, which makes use of photoplethysmography alerts to inform customers they could have hypertension with out utilizing a blood stress cuff, amongst U.S. adults with out recognized hypertension. Data had been analyzed from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2017 to 2020.

Using the estimated prevalence of hypertension within the total eligible inhabitants, the constructive and damaging predictive values had been 69.1 and 79.0 %, respectively. The researchers discovered that amongst eligible people aged youthful than 30 years, an alert elevated the chance of hypertension from 0.14 to 0.47; it lowered to 0.10 within the absence of an alert. Among eligible people aged 60 years or older, the chance of hypertension elevated from 0.45 to 0.81 with an alert and lowered to 0.34 within the absence of an alert.

“A large proportion of individuals unaware of their hypertension may be made aware,” the authors write. “However, an even larger proportion of individuals with undiagnosed hypertension could receive no alert at all. … False reassurance may discourage some individuals with undiagnosed hypertension from obtaining appropriate screening or engaging with the health care system, resulting in missed opportunities for early detection and treatment.”

Several authors disclosed funding from instructional or institutional grants.

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