The Apple Watch’s Sleep Apnea Notification Feature: Hype or Help?

Sleep apnea is a significant concern, not only as a potential cause of but also a result of metabolic disease. It involves the airway closing during sleep, which ultimately causes interrupted breathing, poor sleep, and other harmful effects. Sleep apnea causes patients to experience fatigue in the short term, which may reduce their productivity and even increase their risk of an accident during the day. Over the long term, it can worsen metabolic disorders and heart disease.

In continuing their push toward becoming a veritable provider of health tools, Apple’s latest watch can also detect sleep disturbances and suggest the possibility of apnea. The Apple Watch records a reading classified as normal or elevated by tracking sleep, snoring, and movement patterns throughout the night. With it, users can understand if they may be experiencing sleep disturbances. The data can be viewed daily.

Is This Watch Feature Helpful?

Sleep apnea can lead to a host of obesity-related and cardiovascular problems, but fully understanding sleep apnea can be costly. Depending on insurance coverage, sleep studies can cost thousands of dollars, potentially limiting their availability. Even home-based sleep studies may cost hundreds of dollars for a single test.

On the other hand, the Apple Watch may be a comfortable and affordable option while offering convenience and a suite of technological enhancements to the user’s life.

Setting costs aside, we must understand the value of these readings. Because these are not medically based sleep studies, there are inherent inaccuracies in both positive and negative readings. Thus, a reading from an Apple Watch should be taken with a grain of salt.

How to Use the Data

Rather than relying on it as a diagnostic tool, it offers patients an excellent starting point to see trends in their sleep habits and eventually start a conversation with their doctor, who can send them to a sleep study for a definitive diagnosis. It can also be used to track sleep trends and improvements, especially if a patient is implementing lifestyle changes that can be measured in sleep quality, such as losing weight, exercising, or quitting smoking. It can also be a great measure to understand progress after bariatric surgery.

The Bottom Line

As with most wearables, patients can use this Apple Watch feature as a tracking tool rather than a definitive diagnostic. Using the Apple Watch to see if you are experiencing sleep disturbances can be a significant first step in understanding why you may be chronically fatigued, having trouble sleeping, or feeling tired even after a long sleep. It can also be the catalyst for changing your lifestyle to improve the concerns mentioned above and other metabolic disorders.