Always consult a physician or other qualified health provider regarding any questions you may have about a medical condition or health objectives. The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as health or medical advice. Price: Free for Android with in-app purchases $1.99 for iOS The old version of this app - Cardiograph Classic - is still available for 99 cents, but the clean, intuitive design of the new version makes it well worth the extra buck. , you can text your heart rate to a loved one using the app's iMessage extension. If you're using the Android version on a shared device, you can set up multiple profiles for family and friends. You can tell the app what you are doing while you're taking your pulse (resting, walking, running, etc.) so that the numbers are stored with added context in your health history. With Cardiograph, you can measure your pulse while you're at rest or in motion. "Watches may serve a very narrow purpose, but they certainly don’t tell the whole story when it comes to your heart.Screenshots of the Cardiograph iOS app. “If you’re having heart problems, go to your doctor," Dr. So, although doctors aren’t exactly recommending that patients go out and buy one of these, they say there’s potential-provided it works well and people use it correctly and with common sense. So, if the Apple Watch is accurate, it presents an opportunity for continuous heart rate monitoring that's less invasive. But that's obviously not common.Īlso, some patients require continuous heart rate monitoring, which is currently performed with a device implanted under a patient's skin, Dr. He sees one or two patients a year who found that their heart rates were off thanks to a consumer heart monitoring device and ended up learning they had an atrial fibrillation or other issue. You can save your results for future reference and keep track of multiple people with individual profiles. Elmer also says some people may see a doctor for abnormal readings who wouldn’t otherwise have sought care. Cardiograph is an application which measures your heart rate. But any symptoms you experience would still require a visit to the doctor's office to sort out, and would likely involve more traditional testing.ĭr. If you have an irregular heart beat, a history of heart disease or heart attack, or a pacemaker, the Apple Watch's ECG could potentially provide helpful information for your doctor-especially if you're having symptoms outside of the doctor's office. Still, experts see some possible benefits to wearing a device like this. “In the past, devices like that have not been so accurate.” “In theory, it will provide the ability to monitor patients in real time but we don’t yet understand how accurate this signal will be,” Dr. But it’s hard to say how accurate the watch heart data will be compared to medical-grade monitors that doctors use until more information (and research) about the Watch's new capability is available. But the Apple Watch only gives you one ECG reading, according to the FDA's approval letter, similar to a Lead I ECG (essentially one part of the standard 12-part ECG). The ECG you'd get at your doctor's office gathers information from 12 areas of your heart, the Mayo Clinic explains. Open the Health app on your iPhone, then follow the onscreen steps to set up ECG. That, and other false positives, may lead to people rushing to the ER and flooding the medical system when they don’t need to, he says. But it could also give you a false positive and freak you out for no reason.Īdditionally, things that are normal and known to be normal to cardiologists could be alarming to an Apple Watch user, like the fact that your heart rate can drop down to 30 or 40 beats per minute when you’re sleeping (which would apparently trigger an alert). If you're not an athlete, having a watch that detects bradycardia could tip you off that something isn't right with your heart and prompt you to seek care, Dr. Long-distance runners, for example, are prone to having lower heart rates (bradycardia), Dr. Eimer worries "a lot" about the potential for false positives, or indications that something is wrong when it isn't.įor instance, while having a low heart rate ( below 60 beats per minute) can be a sign of a heart issue, thyroid disorder, sleep apnea, or a side effect of high blood pressure medications, in many cases, it's totally harmless-especially if you're a serious athlete. “It seems like a wonderful idea and I’m sure there are some potential upsides to it," Micah Eimer, M.D., a cardiologist and medical director for the Northwestern Medicine Glenview and Deerfield Outpatient Centers, tells SELF. This seems great in theory, but doctors are a little wary.
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