eter and the newly introduced gyroscope, the Series 4 watch is now able to detect these hard falls and be able to distinguish between them and the many other different body/arm move- ments such as clapping, banging on a drum, using a hammer, etc. that the user presents. The result is a watch and app that work together to detect hard falls. When a hard fall happens to a user who is wearing the Apple Watch 4, the watch will wait a full minute. If it does not detect any movement in that minute, it will offer the wearer multi-sen- sory stimulation and the opportunity to respond. With haptic feedback, it taps the user’s wrist, emits an auditory alarm and vi- sually displays a message that says: “Looks like you have taken a hard fall.”The auditory alert is loud enough for someone nearby to hear it. There is then a 15 second opportunity to click a box that says: “I fell, but I’m okay.” or to dismiss the alert by pressing the Digital Crown. If there is no response to that message in the given time, the watch will then call 911 and send text messages to family and others previously designated by the user as emer- gency contacts. (If Location Services is off, it will temporarily turn it on.) This message will notify the recipients that the user has fallen, give their current location and if location changes, will send an update about 20 minutes later. (All falls, whether or not reported to 911, are automatically recorded in the Health app, which keeps an ongoing record of falls for future reference.)
home, muscle weakness, postural hypotension (blood pressure that drops too much when rising from a sitting or reclining po- sition) and problems with gait and balance. Poor balance can also be a side effect of some common medications, including anti-seizure drugs, hypertensive (high blood pressure) drugs, antihistamines, antidepressants, anti-anxiety drugs and many others. For a comprehensive article on preventing falls by Jane Brody, well-known Personal Health Consultant and NY Times columnist, see: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/25/well/live/ falls-can-kill-you-heres-how-to-minimize-the-risk.html The Emergency SOS option used by Fall Detection can also be used manually. (This feature has been available in previous ver- sions of the Apple Watch.) Users press and hold the side button on the watch and the Emergency SOS slider appears. The watch calls emergency services (911) and also sends your emergen- cy contacts a text with your current location and for a period of time after, it updates when your location changes. Also in an emergency, Apple Watch users can just say “Hey Siri, Call (say name or 911) and Siri will place a call, hands free. User can then speak directly to 911 or family for help.
ECG/EKG Capabilities
ECG Results
An electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG), usually conducted in a hospital, clinic or a doctor’s office, records the electrical signals of the heart in order to identify or monitor heart difficulties. The usual ECG/EKG is called a 12 lead test, because it gets its infor- mation from 12 different sensors on 12 different locations. The result is a graph that reveals a pattern of activity. These elec- trocardiograms can only record an abnormal heart rhythm if it occurs during the actual test. According to Apple, the Apple Watch Series 4 is the “first direct-to-consumer products that en- ables customers to take an electrocardiogram right from their wrist, capturing heart rhythm in a moment when they experi- ence symptoms like a rapid or skipped heart beat and helping to provide critical data to physicians”. Another feature of the watch (Series 1 or later) is that it also checks heart rhythms in
Video demonstrating Fall Detection in more detail https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7xI2dUPN3A
For Fall Detection to work in this way, the user must have set it up previously. The directions for setting up Fall Detection can be found at https://www.imore.com/how-set-and-use-fall-de- tection-apple-watch-series-4. For emergency calling to work, you must have either the cellular model of the Apple Watch or be near your paired iPhone or Wi-Fi service. Fall Detection is an outstanding option for those with Spe- cial Needs and for those older users who are at a greater risk for falling. Major causes of falls also include safety hazards in the
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