Stanford Scientist Links Smart Watch Data To Disease Detection
© Steve Fisch/Stanford Medicine Michael Snyder heads up a Stanford University lab that studies data taken from wearables and its connection to user's health. PALO ALTO, CA – Michael Snyder may be unique in the fact that he can be found wearing three smart watches at any given time. If one adds the Oura smart ring that can be found on the hand of Stanford's director of genomics and personalized medicine into the mix, the amount of electronic health tracking that is going on his health registers off the chart.
But could a smart watch determine if a person has contracted the coronavirus? Snyder, for one, believes there is a very distinct possibility it can.
His hypothesis stems from the fact that not long ago, Snyder used smart watch technology to detect that he suffers from Lyme disease. Even before he showed symptoms, Snyder relied on a reading that his pulse had dropped and that his heart rate had changed to determine he was likely a candidate for the disease. The diagnosis was then confirmed when he also experienced a rise in skin temperature.
Snyder now heads up a Stanford lab that is conducting the university's Wearables Data Study, which is evaluating whether smart watches may be able to provide early detection of the coronavirus before patients begin to experience symptoms.
So far, nine people who have previously tested positive for the coronavirus have participated in the study, which is still in its infancy. Of the nine, data taken from their smart watches showed that five demonstrated that they were ill before they showed symptoms associated with COVID-19. Two other subjects experienced a change in heart rate at the time they began experiencing symptoms while the wearables failed to detect changes in the other two subjects.
In one case, Snyder and his colleagues noticed an increased heart rate 10 days before the person started experiencing symptoms associated with the coronavirus, which – if studied in real time – would have kept the coronavirus patient from coming into contact with others for 10 full days before they were diagnosed.
Now, given the number of people who wear smart watches, Snyder and his Stanford colleagues find themselves with a control group that one day could grow into millions of case studies and that the study could help detect illness before symptoms set in.
"We think this is a big deal," Snyder told Patch on Thursday, adding, "I know (the study) will work – what I don't know is how well it will work."
© Provided by Patch Snyder's Stanford team does not yet know whether the data given off by smart watches will allow them to detect the coronavirus specifically. Snyder is, however, confident that the study will be able to differentiate between bacterial infections and viral infections.
While the main factor is a change in heart rate, other measurables that some devices can pick up on – including skin temperature, blood oxygen levels and respiration – may help specify what kind of illness is coming.
All of the information used in the study is being derived from a number of wearables, each of which takes 250,000 measurements per day, which can then be used to determine the level of health the person wearing the device is experiencing. Snyder has partnered with Fitbit, which has approximately 30 million users, but the study will include other smart watches, include those made by Apple which is worn by tens of millions of users, as part of the study.
Snyder and his colleagues use such smart watch measurements to monitor changes in people's resting heart rate. Since beginning to study the connection between an increase in heart rate and illness, the Stanford lab's testing has proven a predictor of illness, which has led to the current coronavirus study.
In the first part of the current study, scientists will work with subjects who have been ill and who wear smart watches to determine exactly both when illness was setting in even before symptoms were experienced. Of the nine coronavirus patients included in the study, family members of those infected wore smart watches, which demonstrated a change in heart rate.
Once algorithms are tuned, the second phase of Snyder's study which will involve Stanford scientists informing participants when they think subjects are getting sickness based on the data pulled from smart watches. As soon as experts detect a change in baseline, they would be pinged, informing them that Snyder's team believes illness may be setting in.
Snyder hopes to include hundreds of people in the study, which he hopes will include subjects of varying ages, sexes and ethnic groups, which would allow for a broad study of information. But as the pandemic continues and as the number of both confirmed cases and coronavirus deaths continue to mount, Snyder is hopeful his lab's work will provide valuable information in the fight against the spread of the virus.
"The power (of the study) is that it is measuring people continuously," he said Thursday. "Healthcare workers are getting tested every day. This is going to be measuring you every minute. So it's very powerful. This won't take away from the testing – it's going to augment the testing. It's going to help people."
Want to get involved in the study? Snyder is seeking more participants, who can find more information about the Stanford program here.
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