Stories about how Apple Watch have helped people detect serious health problems early, is increasing. However, one of the latest cases from New Zealand clearly shows how profound the impact can be.eventActive health monitoring using a smartwatch.
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Amanda Faulkner, a consultant psychiatrist from Napier, used the older model for many years Apple Watch, which belonged to her husband. Last year she bought a newer model Apple Watch Series 10, which also offers a new Vitals app. This app monitors key body functions during the night – heart rate, breathing rate, body temperature, blood oxygen saturation and sleep quality. Each morning, it provides the user with an overview and alerts them to any deviations from normal.
It was thanks to these features that Amanda received repeated warnings that her resting heart rate was unusually high – instead of the usual 55 beats per minute, it was around 90 beats per minute. At first, she thought it was a device error. But when the warnings kept coming back, she decided to go to her doctor and show him the data from her watch.
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Her GP immediately sent her to the emergency room, where she underwent a series of tests. The diagnosis was shocking: acute myeloid leukaemia, a rare type of blood cancer. Doctors told her that if she had come in a few days later, the untreated illness would have put her life at serious risk.
The next day, January 9, Amanda was transferred to Palmerston North Hospital, where she has been undergoing chemotherapy since then. She will undergo a stem cell transplant at Wellington Hospital in July. The procedure, which will replace her bone marrow with marrow from a European donor, will give her a new immune system – but it also carries a mortality risk of around 20%.
"Honestly, if my smartwatch wasn't constantly alerting me, I wouldn't even think something was wrong," he said.Amanda wrote for The New Zealand Herald. Her husband Mike adds that Apple Watch "dramatically changed her life"ance on survival" and significantly contributed to early diagnosis.
