New in-ear device promises to predict fainting, help understand dizziness and brain fog

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/13/stat-health-in-ear-wearable-promises-it-can-predict-fainting.html


KEY POINTS

• 
  
• STAT Health on Tuesday announced its new 24/7 in-ear wearable, called STAT, which measures blood flow to the head.
• When users stand up, the earpiece automatically tracks changes in their heart rate, blood pressure and blood flow. It has also proven to predict fainting minutes before it happens.
• Users can track their metrics in an app on their cellphone and glean insights into how their lifestyle choices affect their symptoms.
• 
  
• “STAT Health CEO Daniel Lee said the wearable is not diagnostic and it is not a form of treatment but that it can serve as a resource for a patient population who are often told their symptoms are not real.
  “This population, a lot of doctors actually can’t measure that anything is necessarily wrong with them,” Lee told CNBC in an interview. “They’re told it’s just in their head because there’s not a way to measure it. But there is a way to validate that there’s something wrong and their experiences are legit.”
• 
  Lee said the STAT will help give patients access to real-time insights to help them decide when they can push themselves, and when they should take it easy.”
  

 

It's a promising device, but trying to market it to end users before it has been tested in any way is not encouraging.

First it has to do what it claims it does, and second it has to be proven to be useful at it. I doubt this would be much useful in terms of "insights to help them decide when they can push themselves", so the message is already off to a bad start. This is too close in spirit to the idea of finding the right formula and combination of rituals to perform that will just grow health, or whatever.

 

I agree that it needs to be tested before being sold. But this line from the story makes it sound like at least some testing has been done?

I don't see a link to any peer reviewed study but maybe it's there and I missed it.

EDIT: A bit more info here:

https://www.accesswire.com/760813/S...r-Long-COVID-POTS-and-Other-Related-Syndromes

There's also this link - https://www.stat-health.com/ - which has this in the FAQ section:

That paragraph includes a link to this study:

https://www.jacc.org/doi/abs/10.1016/j.jacep.2023.02.002

Sorry for the stream of consciousness post. It was like following bread crumbs through the woods to find the study.

I hope it's the right one!

 

Found this post by Dysautonomia International which mentions the follow-up study being done by Duke:

Text from tweets:
1: "Congratulations to our friends at STAT Health, who launched their new ear device today that can track heart rate, blood flow to the head, body position & more! We are super excited to see tech companies developing tools for the #dysautonomia community!"

2:"They are taking pre-orders starting today at http://stat-health.com. Duke University researchers will be presenting new dysautonomia research using this device during our annual conference in DC next month: http://DysConf.org "

Code:

https://twitter.com/Dysautonomia/status/1668720140869853184

 

I think it will be and we actually have a thread.

 

Looks very interesting. I would love to have a device that can track blood flow to the head. It would probably help me get treatment.

 

Found another article about this device -

This isn’t an AirPod — it’s a wearable unlike any I’ve seen before

https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobil...g-covid-in-ear-wearable-interview-daniel-lee/

(not sure if there's any new data there, just adding it to the thread)

 

here are a couple of other links. The first is the announcement of a webinar by Solve ME/CFS on this device.

https://solvecfs.org/event/the-futu...-ear-device-that-measures-blood-flow-to-head/

here is the link to the devices website. I read on this webpage that they are targeting a subscription price of $50 a month.

https://www.stat-health.com/

 

pretty interesting. here is more info on the company. It seems they have just only recently received $5 million in funding. It appears that their initial grant funding was done by the United States military. The founders appear to have the technical know how.

https://techfundingnews.com/worlds-...-1m-funding-to-combat-cardiovascular-disease/

 

has anyone tried to order it? I tried from Norway with VPN, but my cards declined. Tried with a Norwegian, German and UK one. Is it any point in getting this if one actually experiences a change in heart rate when standing?