I was a surgical trainee not a cardiologist, but there is something interesting and unusual about the step change here. In the context of structural heart disease, this to me implies a cardiac event ?chorda tendinae rupture or possibly ?ischaemia that suddenly worsened the competency of the heart valves, reducing cardiac output and leading to the change in resting heart rate etc. This later put the patient at risk for sudden cardiac death.
I guess the authors' argument here is that the change in wearable data could alert clinicians to the need for further imaging and/or change management. But the sudden step change here may not be typical or generalisable across all causes of sudden cardiac death - they obviously state this is n=1, but I think it's worth emphasising that the change may be quite specific to this case.
We do generalise in medicine as it speeds up decision making, but we always see vitals in the patient context. Longitudinal data may be able to build a picture of what is normal for a patient - but I would say healthy physiology is fairly consistent. Even with individualised data, the problem will still be signal to noise, and working out when to alert the clinician or patient.
One of the reasons doctors don't like unnecessary scans is they have knock on effects - radiation, unnecessary procedures / biopsies, patient anxiety and extra strain on healthcare systems. A larger problem is reaching patients that are less health-conscious, that are unlikely to wear wearables or access the diagnostic tests they need.
What kind of wearable imaging are you thinking of?
I guess the authors' argument here is that the change in wearable data could alert clinicians to the need for further imaging and/or change management. But the sudden step change here may not be typical or generalisable across all causes of sudden cardiac death - they obviously state this is n=1, but I think it's worth emphasising that the change may be quite specific to this case.
We do generalise in medicine as it speeds up decision making, but we always see vitals in the patient context. Longitudinal data may be able to build a picture of what is normal for a patient - but I would say healthy physiology is fairly consistent. Even with individualised data, the problem will still be signal to noise, and working out when to alert the clinician or patient.
One of the reasons doctors don't like unnecessary scans is they have knock on effects - radiation, unnecessary procedures / biopsies, patient anxiety and extra strain on healthcare systems. A larger problem is reaching patients that are less health-conscious, that are unlikely to wear wearables or access the diagnostic tests they need.
What kind of wearable imaging are you thinking of?