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My son-in-law (sil) bought his folks smart watches for Christmas, and linked them to his own smart watch. Monday evening the kids had just finished grocery shopping when my sil’s watch pinged, alerting him to a ‘hard fall’ from his dad’s (Bill) watch. He immediately phoned his mom (Sue), who went into the basement to check on Bill. Bill had suffered a stroke and had been unable to call up to Sue for help. The kids were literally minutes from the house. Upon turning onto the street, they saw that a life squad was already inside the house administrating lifesaving care.
How could help have arrived so quickly?
When Bill’s watch recorded the fall, he immediately received a message from Apple. When he was unable to respond, Apple contacted 911 for assistance. All this happened before Sue found Bill downstairs.
Everyone is hoping and praying for recovery, and we all feel like the timeliness of the response saved Bill’s life.
A while back, Chrissy bought me a smart watch. I did not like it. I took it back. I like my old fashioned analog watches. I am re-thinking that decision.
I use a Garmin watch to monitor exercise. As soon as I added the app to observe exercise results I found three other apps (already on my phone) that “speaks” to my Garmin device. All four apps provide data related to sleep data, measure health and fitness in various ways, and maintain data. I’m pleased with the information I can call up and review.
I use my fitbit to track :steps, sleep, pulse rate and V02 max. Targeting 8 hours sleep, 52 pulse and hoping my Vo2 max of 52 is accurate. Interesting that Google with fitbit and Apple with their watch are already deep into this. So smart watch good to monitor health and the elderly as well.
I hope your father in law recovered from his fall. I am a widower age 81 who lives alone. I bought a medical alert which detects falls as well as 2 way communications for the very situation you described.
Years ago, we had a widower neighbor who lived alone. He had a stroke and laid in his kitchen floor for 12 hours before he was discovered. I do not want to have that happen to me.
Initially I got a fall alert watch but it was ultra sensitive and triggered a couple of false alarms. I had EMS poking around my house with flashlights at 2am one morning. I switched to the pendent type and so far have not had any false alarms. I highly recommend that to seniors even if they do not live alone.
My CCRC provides all residents with alarm pendants/watches, plus pull cords in bathrooms. I much prefer that to giving Apple a bunch of medical data. We are also required to open our doors between 5:00 am and 10:30 am and if not we get a phone call followed by a visit if we don’t answer the phone.
Our CCRC’s pull cords have sensors that detect movement which is checked at the concierge’s station, so we don’t need to open our doors. Pendants/watches would be nice in case we couldn’t make it to a pull cord, even though there is one in each room. However, I’m too wedded to my Apple watch to wear both.
Smart wife!
Dan, I hope everything turns out well for your family. It sounds like he received treatment within the “golden hour,” and that’s encouraging news.
By amazing coincidence, I was looking for a smart watch this morning. For the last two months, my ten-year-old grandson has been having episodes of extremely high heart rate and chest pain that make him feel unwell. His doctors are convinced it’s a condition called SVT (Supraventricular Tachycardia), but every time he’s had 48-hour monitors attached, they haven’t been able to catch an episode.
On Wednesday, the cardiologist suggested getting him a smart watch to wear so his vital signs can be recorded during the next attack. The technology is definitely a great example of a helpful gadget for medical reasons. I think you should reconsider your resistance to a smart watch because life happens and you just never know.
G was told to monitor her low blood pressure. We purchased a cuff and a $50 smart watch on Amazon. G uses the watch daily and we’ve checked it against the cuff. The BP is surprisingly accurate. If an anomaly occurs we’ll check it with the cuff. The watch is linked to my android phone.