A nursing student felt unknown symptoms worsening for months. Missed health warnings from an Apple Watch spotted the issue before anyone else.
A nursing student in Sydney, Australia was suffering from unknown symptoms for months, and it turns out her Apple Watch noticed something was off before anyone else. Leadership at Apple, spearheaded by CEO Tim Cook, has maintained that the company will be remembered for its advancements in the wearable industry. Not because of its computing power or ease of use, but because of the effects it has on human health. The Apple Watch has saved numerous lives over the years, and as technology develops, it has the potential to become a necessary health tool.
The device is a well-rounded health product that can have life-saving benefits in just about any situation. The watch has an electrocardiogram (ECG) built in to the heart rate monitor and Digital Crown, and health experts say it is accurate enough for remote heart monitoring. It has the same silent emergency SOS feature as on the iPhone — a quick and discreet way to notify emergency services of dangerous situations — and for cellular models, emergency services can be reached from anywhere. A lesser known feature, the medical ID, acts as a ‘dog tag’ of sorts for the wearer. It can store all sorts of critical medical information, such as allergy information and chronic diseases, which may aid bystanders and first responders in assisting in medical emergencies. That’s just a few of the ways the Apple Watch can thwart health issues, and the company plans to expand on those capabilities in the future.
The newest revolutionary health feature to be added to the Apple Watch was the blood oxygen sensor, introduced in the Series 6 watch. It measures oxygen levels using both red and infrared light rays in just seconds. According to a report from the New Zealand Herald, it’s precisely this feature that warned a nurse of a serious health problem. The student was suffering from unknown symptoms, which she first attributed to the stress and tiredness that comes from nursing. “With Covid and our healthcare system being so overwhelmed with everything I thought, ‘no, no, I’m just tired, I’m just rundown, I’ll be all right,'” student Lauren Rebecca told The Herald.
How The Watch Caught Rare Thyroid Problem
As the symptoms got more severe — Rebecca reported symptoms of irregular heartbeat, weight gain, and temperature sensitivity — and the student started investigating the cause of her health woes. An ultrasound revealed that half of her thyroid was missing, the gland that releases hormones to control critical bodily functions, such as heartbeat, muscle function, and brain development. Rebecca was curious whether the Apple Watch’s health monitoring features detected any changes, and it did. Missed health notifications informing the nursing student of worrying fitness trends might have saved months of investigation had they been seen.
The watch notified of decreasing trends in her V02 Max levels, a health indicator that was added alongside the blood-oxygen sensor. VO2 Max quantifies the maximum oxygen that can be taken in by the respiratory system during times of high activities. Among other things, it is an indicator of cardiovascular fitness levels. Higher levels are better, and people who are younger and have high activity levels usually trend to have higher values on the scale. All that is to say that Rebecca, a 21 year-old nursing student, isn’t likely to be trending downwards in VO2 Max levels. In hindsight, it was a clear indicator that something was wrong with her personal health. This is just the latest example of an Apple Watch noticing health issues before people do, and since Apple plans to add more health features to its watches, there may be more to come.
Source: New Zealand Herald, Apple
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