Apple Watch detects illness before nurses know it
The Apple Watch is slowly becoming a personal wearable health monitor. A nurse from Australia posted a remarkable story on TikTok with the message: turn on your (health) notifications on your Apple Watch! Read in this article why it is extremely useful to enable these notifications.
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The Apple Watch as a health meter
A nurse in Australia shared her special story on TikTok last week. After complaints of fatigue, heavy fluctuations in weight, dry skin and sensitivity to temperature, the sister found it necessary to have a smalle check up to do with a doctor. At first it looked like a burnout from the increased Covid-19 work, but after the doctor’s visit she turned out to have an inflamed thyroid.
Now comes the remarkable thing: Although she had been suffering from these complaints for months and finally decided to make an appointment with the doctor, her Apple Watch had already been aware of this disease all along. However, the nurse had her health meter notifications turned off on the smartwatch and was therefore never informed. Her oxygen levels during exercise had been extremely low for months. If she had looked at her Apple Watch, she could have tackled the problem months earlier.
Now she shares her story in a TikTok and to a local newspaper and reports that it is useful to always have these notifications turned on. You do this in the Watch App under ‘Messages’. There you will find several options such as your heart measurements and a sound meter. The latter tells you how many decibels are around you and indicates at what level it is harmful.
Other examples of your Apple Watch alertness
Although the nurse in her TikTok says that it is useful to turn on the health notifications on your Apple Watch to prevent illnesses, she does mention that blind faith in this smartwatch is not healthy either. If you use it purely to better listen to your own body, you’re fine. Use your common sense!
In a hospital in New York they are also experimenting with the Apple Watch as a monitor for orthopedic patients. Another Apple Watch user, coincidentally while in the hospital with his father, was told by his smartwatch that his heart rate was ticking 161 BPM. This is higher than athletes who perform a strenuous exercise. He reported this to the doctor. In this way, the Apple Watch discovered that the man was suffering from a heart rhythm disorder.
What else can the Apple Watch do for your health?
Apple has added many health features to the Apple Watch over the years. There is of course a heart rate monitor that also warns of a high, low or irregular pulse. The EKG meter in the Apple Watch makes a heart film of thirty seconds long. This smartwatch also keeps track of your cardio (heart and lungs), ambient sound volume and oxygen saturation. In addition, the Apple Watch also has an extra handy function for the elderly; if these fall, it measures this and, if this is set up, can automatically send a message to the care provider or to relatives.
There are rumors that the Apple Watch Series 8, which has yet to be announced, can measure your blood sugar level with infrared sensors. This is ideal for people with diabetes. However, this rumor has been circulating for several years, so there is no certainty. Are you curious about new features of the Apple Watch series 8? Sign up for our newsletter or download our iOS app to stay informed of all the Apple news.
