Many people regularly use a smart device or blood pressure monitor to track their heart health – but few share the data with their doctor, according to researchers at Ohio State University.
After commissioning a survey of more than 1,000 U.S. adults, the researchers found that 66% of respondents regularly use some sort of heart-health monitoring device. The most popular devices used: smartwatches (32%), portable blood pressure machines (31%), fitness apps (19%), and wearable fitness or movement trackers (13%).
Of that group, however, 75% didn’t use that data “to prompt a conversation about their heart health with their doctor.”
In a press release, Laxmi Mehta, director of Preventative Cardiology and Women’s Cardiovascular Health at the OSU Wexner Medical Center, said self-monitoring devices are “really helpful to patients and their health care providers because they can potentially catch things early.”
Mehta continued: “For example, if patients are monitoring their blood pressure at home and notice it’s been going up over time, they may want to discuss it with their doctor sooner rather than waiting for their annual visit. Or they may capture some irregular heart rhythms on their devices, like atrial fibrillation, much sooner than would be diagnosed at the doctor’s office.”
