This appeared last week.
Apple Watch ECG gets Australian tick
Australia's health regulator has finally approved Apple Watch's electrocardiogram feature. It means Apple watches will be capable of the advanced heart monitoring functionality announced in 2018.
This ECG approval comes three weeks after the Therapeutic Goods Association (TGA) approved the irregular rhythm notification feature on the watch.
The two functions work together. The irregular rhythm notification feature alerts users to any irregular heart beat. It periodically reads your heart rhythm in the background.
The ECG readout is an on-demand feature. You install the ECG feature on the watch. Once that's done, you open the ECG app on the watch, rest your arms on a table and hold your finger on the watch's digital crown to take the reading. Apple says the recording takes about 30 seconds.
One could envisage where you perform an ECG after getting a notification of an irregular heart rhythm.
These two features became possible with the Apple Watch Series 4 but weren't activated in Australia. Apple will need to perform an upgrade to its watch operating system for this to happen. An upgrade is scheduled during Autumn, according to MacRumours.
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As a physician I am interested to see just how well it works as well as seeing (being of advanced age) that my cardiac rhythm is acceptable!
If I do happen to drop into Atrial Fibrillation I would much prefer to know than not as there is effective treatment both to get the rhythm back to normal as well as preventing nasty complications like stroke etc.
A good thing to have enabled if you have he requisite watch (or some other TGA approved competitors).
David.
1 comment:
Amazing science
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