Apple An event to announce the new iPhoneFor Apple Watch and AirPods models, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a feature on the Apple Watch that can detect sleep apnea in device wearers.
The sleep apnea detection tool arrives four days before Apple’s new Series 10 watch hits the market on September 20. However, owners of existing Apple Watch Series 9 and Watch Ultra 2 models can start using the sleep apnea feature today by downloading Apple’s newly released watchOS 11 software.
People with sleep apnea may feel tired in the morning because their breathing stops and starts repeatedly during the night. If left undetected, severe cases of sleep apnea can lead to heart disease and other complications. Loud snoring can also be a symptom. According to health organizations such as the American Heart Association, the condition affects an estimated 1 billion people worldwide, but is often undiagnosed.
According to the FDA’s approval notice, the Apple Watch’s sleep apnea feature is not a diagnostic tool, but rather an over-the-counter device designed to assess the watch wearer’s risk of sleep apnea. According to Apple, the new health feature, Disordered Breathing, is a metric that acts as “an intelligent guardian of the user’s health.”
According to Apple, the feature uses the watch’s accelerometer to detect “small wrist movements associated with interruptions to normal breathing patterns” while you sleep. Every 30 days, the Apple Watch will analyze your breathing disorder data and alert users with consistent sleep interruptions to see a doctor to get a sleep apnea diagnosis.
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“Giving any consumer the ability to reliably identify the presence of abnormal breathing patterns during sleep could help detect serious and underdiagnosed medical conditions like sleep apnea,” Sairam Parthasarathy, M.D., professor of medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine and director of the Circadian Rhythm and Neuroscience Sleep Center at the University of Arizona Health Sciences Sleep Center, said in a statement. “This is a major step toward improving public health.”
FDA approval of sleep apnea feature comes after Apple AirPods Pro 2 is a commercially available hearing aid The company has approved the new earbuds for users with mild to moderate hearing loss, further solidifying the company’s position as a player in the health technology market. Hearing experts hailed the regulator’s approval of the new earbuds as a positive for the OTC hearing aid market and the approximately 30 million Americans who suffer from mild to moderate hearing loss.