Many medical doctors are recommending Apple Watches as a medical tool to help diagnose and manage certain conditions, including heart disease monitoring and post-surgery recovery.
Errol Barnett and Sara Moniuszko for CBS News:
“There are a lot of health benefits” in using these devices, said Dr. Rod Passman, cardiologist and professor of medicine at Northwestern Medicine.
“It empowers patients to get involved in their health care. It allows them to understand lifestyle choices may impact their health. And from my perspective, it allows me to monitor my patients long term, remotely, no matter where they are in the world, to understand what’s going on with their heart rhythm, simply by doing an EKG from the watch itself,” Passman told CBS News. “So I think this is a very powerful tool, and many of us are using it, not only to diagnose disease, but perhaps even manage diseases like abnormal rhythm.”
Passman is leading a study funded by the National Institute of Health that aims to understand whether people with abnormal rhythms of the heart can use these devices to personalize care.
“Instead of taking your blood thinner, for example, 12 months out of the year, perhaps the watch can help guide when you need to take the blood thinner so that you can receive the benefits of a medication while minimizing the risks,” he said.
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Monitoring heart-rate and EKG are key features for me, but the sleep monitoring is an unexpected bonus. Heart rate variability is one of the measurements my doctor always looks at.
My husband got several notices on his Apple Watch about a slow heart rate. A trip to the doctor confirmed it and within a week a pacemaker was implanted. The funny thing is without those notices, he would not have seen his doctor. We were scheduled to make a long cruise with many sea days. Getting medical care would have been delayed and the doc said he could have died. We are so happy his watch alerted him!
Whoa, quality info. Thanks for sharing.
I’ve noticed that anytime I’m in a medical facility, all staff, across the board, are wearing Apple Watches. My daughter gave me a 6 for Christmas a while back and I discovered I have AFib. Would never have known otherwise. So saved my life on day 1!
After two heart ablation operations in the past three months to rectify Atrial flutter and Atrial Fibrillation, it was instructive to see both my GP and cardiologist wearing and recommending Apple Watches. Both of my conditions necessitating these surgeries came on the back of a severe virus and my Apple Watch Ultra Series 2 picked up telltale signs that made me head straight for my doctor, where an ECG confirmed my problems.