atrial fibrillation

San Antonio Spurs legend and NBA commentator Sean Elliott recently experienced a health scare highlighting Apple Watch’s potentially life-saving capabilities. Elliott, known his role in the Spurs’ first championship, found himself at the center of a different kind of heart-pounding drama, according to a report.

“My watch kept telling me you’re in Atrial Fibrillation. It just kept telling me over and over again, and I said, ‘there’s no way, I feel fine,'” Elliott recounted in an interview. Despite feeling no symptoms, the persistent warnings from his smartwatch eventually prompted him to seek medical attention. And it’s a good thing he did.

A Canadian firefighter credited Apple Watch for saving his life when he suffered a heart attack, according to a report over the weekend.

Given the wearable probably saved his life, the fit and active 44-year-old man said he’ll never go another day without it.

For the first time, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) qualified a digital technology — Apple Watch’s AFib History feature — for a special research program. AFib, or atrial fibrillation, is a type of abnormal heart beat associated with heart attacks.

Apple Watch’s AFib History now qualifies for FDA’s stringent Medical Device Development Tools (MDDT) program. The program says which tools research sponsors can choose from to help develop and evaluate medical devices.

In a recent report, Apple outlined the “rigorous scientific validation processes” used to develop the health and fitness features baked into its products.

Wearables like Apple Watch monitor our bodies around the clock, providing health insights in real time. That’s a new and unprecedented development in medical technology. The benefits are already clear, as the report illustrates, with anecdotes about how Apple Watch has saved lives.

But anecdotal evidence is not the same as scientific research. By cherry-picking the best outcomes, anecdotes risk overlooking the bigger picture. Scientists must look at all the outcomes, not just the good ones. With that in mind, I took a closer look at the scientific studies cited in Apple’s report, to find out what they tell us about the impact Apple Watch is having on our health.

In recent years Apple Watch has shown itself to be a lifesaver, either by calling for help when a person’s incapacitated or by offering health readings that lead a person to see a doctor.

In the latter category it just happened again. A woman in Maine didn’t believe what the wearable was telling her at first. But going to the ER led to open-heart surgery that saved her from a probable fatal stroke.

A Kentucky woman says her Apple Watch detected atrial fibrillation, aka irregular heart rhythms, while she slept.

Rosemary Stiles told local newscaster WHAS11 that she had been feeling unusually tired and rundown. But she had no idea that this could potentially be a sign of something more serious.

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.”

Apple came out with two new how-to videos for the Apple Watch today, showing customers how to take advantage of some of the new features introduced last year.

The two videos cover how to turn on heart health notifications and fall detection. Each video is only 30 seconds long and shows how to activate each feature in just three or four easy steps.

Watch them both right here:

The long-awaited ECG app is almost available on Apple Watch Series 4 (if you live in the U.S.) with watchOS 5.1.2.

It is the first wearable of its kind to offer this functionality, which promises to help uses detect atrial fibrillation — the most common form or irregular rhythm. Irregular heart rhythm notifications have also landed on Series 1 devices and later.

Apple Watch can accurately detect atrial fibrillation, a serious heart condition that is a leading cause of stroke, and could also help identify if you’re at risk of a apple watch heart attack.

This advanced feature remains in testing. However, a new medical study offers proof that wearables can do far more than simply track fitness. In fact, they could actually keep the wearer alive.

The Apple Watch just got a whole lot more indispensable! Today, two major heart-related developments mean Apple’s wearable device could one day save your life.

Firstly, Apple teamed up with Stanford Medicine to launch an Apple Watch heart app that looks for deadly atrial fibrillation. It alerts users when they experience irregular heart rhythms, and can actually get them help.

Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration finally approved AliveCor’s Kardiaband EKG reader. It’s the first medical device accessory for the Apple Watch.