Heartline Study

My husband participated in a Harvard study for over ten years. It had something to do with taking medicine and how it affected cardiac health. He even had to have blood drawn for it. It ended up he was getting placebos. I just signed up to participate in a virtual Heartline study sponsored by Stanford. What caught my eye was that some participants would receive an Apple Watch. The goal is for overall cardiac health, and determine if smart devices can assist with discovering atrial fibrillation. Since I have a family history of cardiac issues, I signed up. After completing a lot of information - on the iPhone - and coordinating Medicare data - I was assigned to the iPhone ONLY group. Rats. I was very disappointed but decided to continue to participate anyway. It’s supposed to last three years. So every week I get a reminder to complete the task of the week. The first one was to learn about the heart. The last one so far was to complete a health history of sorts. You can also accumulate points that are converted to a Visa card. I suppose that would be an incentive for some. I was more interested in experimenting with an Apple Watch. That was the hook and I fell for it. But given that both my husband and I were in the health care field, it’s sort of an obligation to help science. Why not? At least I don’t have to have any blood drawn.