Captain America and Blackpanther were about to defend Earth from the criminal Thanos when Kevin Foley first noticed something was wrong. Foley, a 46-year old information-technology worker from Kyle, Texas, was heading into the theater to see Avengers: Infinity War when he realized he was having trouble breathing normally. The same symptom struck again during another movie the following night, but more severe this time. Once the cast on the second film rolled, Foley took action: he looked at his wristwatch. It was a bigger step than you might imagine, because Foley was wearing an Apple Watch equipped with medical sensors and experimental software to track basic functions of his heart. And the watch was worried. It had, according to the display, detected signs of an irregular heartbeat.
Before long, Foley was in an emergency room, where doctors hooked him up to an ECG(心电图), which showed that he was in atrial fibrillation(心房颤动), an irregular heartbeat that can lead to blood clots(血栓), stroke and other potentially disastrous diseases. Foley spent the next few days in the hospital while doctors worked to return him to a normal heart rhythm eventually turning to a procedure called electrical cardioversion to shock his heart back to normal. Foley is doing fine now. But he believes that, if not for the warning on his watch, he might not have sought help in time. “I would have never known,” he says.
Foley and his watch were part of an experiment run by Apple and Stanford's medical school. But beginning Dec. 6, anyone can get an on-the-fly heart checkup, assuming they've paid $399 or more for an Apple Watch. That's when Apple will launch a software update that turns its latest model, called the Series 4, into a personal ECG, thanks to an innovative new sensor. Though less complicated than hospital ECG machines, the watch version can still provide basic information and warnings of potential risks worthy of a closer look by a medical professional.
For Apple, this new ECG-on-your-wrist is its biggest bet yet that personal technology will inevitably include personal health. Along with competitors, Apple has already offered fitness functions, such as apps to track the steps you've walked. But with the new ECG scan, Apple is moving straight into medical aspects of heath, a distinction underlined by the fact it sought and received Food and Drug Administration clearance for the clearance for the heart monitor.
