AppleInsider reported that Apple is working on a technology that can detect the user’s blood pressure by using neural networks and electrocardiogram data, thereby ignoring the need for blood pressure cuffs. According to a patent application published on Thursday, a wearable device that may be paired with Apple Watch may one day be able to monitor the user’s blood pressure without any additional equipment.
The patent application is titled “An Interpretable Neural Network for Cuffless Blood Pressure Estimation” and discusses the use of neural networks to estimate blood pressure using electrocardiogram data. Unlike the electrocardiogram, which relies on electrical signals to monitor heart rate, the electrocardiogram measures the micro-vibrations generated by the beating of the heart.
Some current seismogram devices are small enough to be considered wearable, although these sensitive systems are usually placed on the user’s breastbone to measure tiny vibrations in or near the heart. Apple was not discussed in Thursday’s documents how intends to deploy such devices.
According to Apple’s patent, the system will work by using a separate neural network, which accepts a seismogram as input. The neural network will then use this data to estimate blood pressure. For example, Apple can create a baseline model by training a neural network with seismogram data and blood pressure measurement data from a group of subjects. Using this baseline, the system can adjust the model for subsequent users. The initial data set will be collected from users who engage in different sedentary activities.
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From there, Apple believes that neural networks can be used to accurately estimate a user’s blood pressure without the need for a cuff. As the patent points out, the system can use neural networks to “determine blood pressure based on accelerator or gyroscope data,” which already exists in Apple devices.
The current version of the Apple Watch can be used to monitor and analyze different types of health data, including optical heart rate measurement technology, electrocardiogram function, or Apple Watch Series 6 blood oxygen measurement feature. Since the release of the Apple Watch, Apple has been continuously expanding the health features of the device, and Apple may be seeking to build a set of health-conscious accessories.
The patent lists Siddharth Khullar, Nicholas E. Apostoloff, and Amruta Pai as their inventors. Among them, Apostoloff was mentioned in a previous patent, dedicated to facial analysis and emotion detection. This is not Apple’s first patent focused on blood pressure monitoring. As early as 2020, the company filed a patent application for a system that supports Apple Watch, which can use pulse transmission time to measure blood pressure. Another system can use pressure sensor data, and Apple has explored how to monitor blood pressure without a cuff in the past.
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