A Central Texas man says that his Apple Watch saved his life by detecting a serious heart condition.
A veterinarian by training, Dr. Ray Emerson said that, despite routinely listening to animals’ heart beats, he was caught unaware when his own heart beat registered as unusual. “The watch dinged me,” he told CBS Austin. “I looked down and it said you are in atrial fibrillation.”
The 79-year-old said that he wasn’t experiencing any symptoms like heart palpitations, fatigue or dizziness. Nonetheless, he visited his doctor who confirmed the diagnosis. He subsequently had surgery to correct the irregular rhythm.
Emerson said that the Apple Watch was a gift. “I was too cheap to buy it myself,” he said. However, he is now sold on the technology and considers it “my buddy.”
Interestingly, the report also quotes Dr. Jason Zagrodzky, a cardiac electrophysiologist at the hospital Emerson had his surgery. “I would say probably at least once or twice a week someone comes to me solely because their watch said, hey, you’ve got a serious problem,” he said. “The Apple Watch doesn’t have to be perfect. It only needs to detect one of those to make the diagnosis.”
Apple Watch has saved far more than one life
The Apple Watch has been saving lives since the very beginning. Much of this has involved Apple Watch’s heart-reading ECG tech. An in-depth study carried out by Stanford University shows that the Apple Watch can adequately identify atrial fibrillation.
By now, there are too many reports to recap them all. As Dr. Zagrodzky says, this is becoming a welcome regular event. Not all of the people diagnosed with Afib are of retirement age, either. Recently a 30-year-old British dad and “fitness fanatic” was alerted to an irregular heart beat by his Apple Watch. That’s despite his physician thinking it was unlikely he might be suffering from it.
Source: CBS Austin
