How your Apple Watch could save your life and detect potential health issues

If you are the owner of an Apple Watch (or thinking about getting one), your Apple Watch has some wonderful health and safety features that make it so worthwhile - especially as you get older.

In fact, you can now set up an Apple Watch for a child or older person who does not have an iPhone - something that was not possible with earlier models of the Watch. You manage the Watch from your own iPhone.

My husband's own Apple Watch was invaluable when he collapsed outside our house just a few weeks ago, with a COVID-induced heart-related complication.

​He was able to send me a text from his watch, calling for help. (He was fine after a 24-hour stay in hospital!)

While he didn't actually fall (he was able to get to ground before passing out), if he had fallen suddenly and not then moved for a period, his watch would have sent me an emergency alert. And it would have called the emergency services if I hadn't come out and found him.

​I regularly see stories in the press about examples of smart watches and devices like the Apple Watch helping out in an emergency. 

Fall Detection

Here's one that appeared just a couple of weeks ago, about a man who was saved by the Fall Detection feature of his Apple Watch.

• Elderly Georgia Man’s Apple Watch Saves Him from Freezing to Death

Fall Detection is automatically turned 'on' if the age of the Watch owner (based on the date of birth recorded against their Apple ID) is above 55. But you can turn it on if you are younger than 55.

Here are a couple of Apple articles about how to set up and use Fall Detection

• Manage fall detection on Apple Watch (Apple Watch SE and Apple Watch Series 4 and later only
• ​Use fall detection with Apple Watch

Monitoring your Heart Health
​
Not only can your watch detect a fall, it can also alert you to other potential health issues. In fact, just today, I saw this article about the early signs of a serious health problem that was indicated in the Health app, in the Cardio Fitness readings - using recordings from the Apple Watch.

• Apple Watch detected Lauren’s ‘dramatic’ change in health. A tiny detail meant she didn’t notice

Your watch can notify you about other Heart Health issues

• Heart health notifications on your Apple Watch
• Atrial fibrillation
• Irregular heart beat
• Low Blood Oxygen level

It really is worth taking a look at all the readings collected by your Apple Watch - which you do in the in the Health app on your iPhone.

Measure your walking steadiness

Your watch can also measure how steady you are when you walk - where unsteadiness can be an early warning sign for future falls.

• Here's the Apple article about his feature.

Other health-related features and notifications

There are some other health-related features that you may be interested in exploring - here are the links to the relevant Apple web pages.

• Hand-washing
• Mindfulness and breathing
• Loud noise detection

Setting up an Apple Watch for a family member

As mentioned earlier in the article, you can now set up an Apple Watch for a family member, even if that family member does not have an iPhone. 

If you are interested in learning more about this, here is the Apple Support Article.

• Set up Apple Watch for a family member

If the family member is a child, you can even set up something called SchoolTime, to limit the Watch's features during school or study hours, providing a simple watch face and stopping notifications and access to the watch's features.

• Here's where to learn more about this.

Need help with any of this?

If you need help with the setup of your own or a family member's Apple Watch, iTandCoffee can help! Call 1300 885 420 or book online here.