Apple Watch helps detect pathologies not covered by Apple. Apple Watch has helped to save many people’s lives in the past and even today there are frequent stories about how Apple’s smartwatch was able to predict potentially dangerous diseases: however, the testimony that has emerged on the net in these hours is interesting because Apple Watch has helped detect conditions for which it was not designed.
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As reported by News5 in Cleveland, Ohio, user Counihan noticed a too-high breathing rate warning on his Apple Watch last October. So he decided to go to the clinic to get an X-ray, even if in the end he was sent home with a simple cure for bronchitis.
However, the same day Counihan received another alert on his Apple Watch, this time relating to his blood oxygen level diving. Using data provided by Apple Watch, plus additional vital exams collected in the emergency room, doctors gave Counihan a CAT scan, which revealed blood clots all over his lungs.
Doctors said that if Counihan had gone to bed instead of going to the emergency room, the consequences would have been particularly serious, even fatal. He obviously praised the Apple Watch for saving his life, and Dr. Lucy Franjic, an emergency physician at the Cleveland Clinic, also echoed those praises:
We have patients who come in and notice these trends of higher than usual heart rates or abnormal rhythms. And so having this information may just help the doctor try to diagnose what the underlying problem is, and to help prevent any life-threatening emergency from happening.
This is an interesting look at how two pieces of data collected by the Apple Watch can be used in tandem to alert someone to serious health issues, which goes beyond even the potential and stock functions of the watch itself. The Apple Watch, of course, can’t alert someone to a potential blood clot, but it can provide the information needed to prompt users to seek further medical attention.
This also marks one of the first – if not the first – time that the blood oxygen monitor feature of Apple Watch is used to diagnose the condition described above. Apple itself says the blood oxygen function is “designed for general fitness and wellness purposes only,” but the data can clearly be used extensively as a benchmark for tracking other health issues.
