Smartwatches and health - not so fast..
You may wait a while for a Parkinson's monitor
My post earlier this week on the rather overhyped story that all 120,000 people with Parkinson’s could soon be given a smartwatch to assess their symptoms provoked a lot of comment. Some people thought the PKG watch sounded a great idea, others worried about whether it would be used as an excuse to make them wait longer for a meeting with their consultant.
But the majority of those responding were asking two questions - how can I get hold of this smartwatch or get a similar Parkinson’s monitoring system on my Apple Watch or my Fitbit? A couple of Parkinson’s nurses told me they’d received similar inquiries and a neighbour has just called me to say his friend with Parkinson’s has read my article and wants me to tell him how to get hold of the PKG watch.
What I’ve learned now is that firstly that isn’t simple, and second the watch might not deliver exactly what they expect. Global Kinetics, the company behind the PKG, seems rather bemused by the hoohah unleashed by the NHS press release hinting at an imminent national rollout.
For many years, the Australian company founded by a clinician has been supplying the PKG watch to some hospitals in the UK, Germany and elsewhere. But this is still largely an experimental if promising technology. And one nurse has made a key point - where patients are supplied with the watch, it’s not on a permanent basis. They are given it for six days, during which they wear it day and night, and then return it for the data to be downloaded and analysed.
The £175 charge to the NHS is not for the watch, just for that single data download. But a spokesman for Global Kinetics insisted the PKG was not designed to replace contact with doctors and nurses: “It's an adjunct to the care, it's not a replacement. It's providing an objective insight of your motor symptoms. And hopefully it helps the patient communicate what's really going on during their week of wearing the watch.”
Well, if I’m not going to get a PKG to keep, asked a number of people including me, can I get an app on my Apple Watch to do the same thing? Ever since it launched its smartwatch in 2014 Apple has made ever greater emphasis of its use as a health management tool. When it comes to heart disease, there’s already a feature allowing users to record an electrocardiogram and researchers both inside and outside the company are exploring its use to monitor other health conditions.
Of particular relevance to Parkinson’s, Apple has released a Movement Disorder API allowing researchers to develop what is describes as “a power-efficient approach to measuring and recording tremors and dyskinetic symptoms". A paper by Apple researchers suggests that the sensors in the watch could provide the kind of data that would enable the effective monitoring of Parkinson’s patients.
That’s the theory - but there are major issues to be faced before it can be put into practice on the Apple Watch and similar devices. First, however power-efficient the API may be, an Apple Watch with all of its bells and whistles still needs charging every day. That’s a big contrast to the PKG, a pretty basic and not very stylish device (though I’m told an update is coming) soon) but one which holds a charge for six days.
One startup company trying to use the Apple API also felt that in attempting to make it less power hungry the company had also made it less accurate. - “the sensors that you need to get the data use a lot of battery,” an executive from the startup told me, “but the Apple Watch doesn't want you to use a lot of battery because it would just run out in two or three hours.” He claimed that the readings from the watch could be pretty unreliable..
But the bigger problem is that if you want to use a consumer watch in a clinical setting you have to go through the arduous process of getting it regulated as a medical device by a body such as the UK’s MHRA. What’s more, every time the device is upgraded - and that’s every year for a consumer product like the Apple Watch - new regulatory approval may need to be sought.
To sum up, smartwatches can do all sorts of clever things, from paying for your latte to reminding you to take your pills. They could also play a vital role in monitoring your health - but that is unlikely to happen in a hurry.
Great to have the clarity of a journalist on these matter, thank you.