A cardiologist from the Orange County is now warning the users of Apple Watch to practice caution when wearing the fitness tracker with latest electrocardiogram app. This application was unveiled by the company on 6th December. Dr. Brian Kolski, the cardiologist said that he had to wake up from sleep just last week after he got a call from his patient who was panicking at the moment.
This patient looked through the ECG reading over the Apple Watch believing that something went wrong with him. Kolski mentioned that the patient texted him the strip that turned out completely normal. The patient was actually a pretty healthy man who is aged 45. He was actually playing around with the watch when he went into panic mode.
After Apple unveiled its new electrocardiogram application last week, the cardiologist received a minimum of 20 calls as well as emails from the panicked patients that thought they suffered from atrial fibrillation/irregular heartbeat. Almost all these cases were either inconclusive or false alarms.
An electrocardiogram is also known as EKG or ECG which is the test used to record the strength and timing of all the electrical signals making our heartbeat. This test can easily provide insights related to the irregularities of the heart’s rhythm. This ECG app by Apple enables the users a chance to take 30 second long simple ECG readings. The results tend to appear on the screen that can be forwarded in PDF forward if any concern is noticed.
Kolski mentioned that Apple released this application in an irresponsible manner without letting them know the proper ways to use the same and interpret its results. He mentioned that the watch mostly acts as fitness tracker which cannot be accounted for in terms of medical diagnosis. Counteracting this statement, a spokesperson for Apple clarified that the company surely provides guidance to its customers that need to use this app. This guidance can be found over the official company website.
However, Kolski mentions that only a few users of this app will actually go through this information posted on the website. He also stated that there were cases where the patients with actual heart conditions misread the readings of the watch. Another patient of his who is a pilot with the airline suffering from a congenital heart disease called up Kolski panicking just because the baseline readings on the application revealed abnormalities.
