This CT scan is what revealed the underlying cause of Counihan’s symptoms. Using the numbers he provided from the Apple Watch, plus additional vitals collected in the ER, doctors ordered a CT scan. At the request of his family, Counihan then reluctantly went to the emergency room. “My blood oxygen - which is normally mid-90s, which is what is supposed to be, kind of 95 and up - started to get out to the mid-80s,” he said. Later that day, however, Counihan received another alert on his Apple Watch: his blood oxygen level was falling. And they gave me some meds for bronchitis at the time.” “My wife had me make a phone call to my son and he suggested I go to the outpatient care, get it looked at, which is what I did. So basically you have a certain number of breaths per minute, basically said I went from 14 to 17 or 18,” Counihan said. “I got an alert back in October that my breathing was elevated. In his case, Counihan decided to go to outpatient care, where he had an X-Ray done and ultimately got sent home with bronchitis medicine. The Health app offers a “Health Trends” feature, which can notify you when there’s a change in a specific metric. Since Counihan wears his Apple Watch for sleep tracking, the Health app was able to collect his respiratory rate and look for trends and changes in those trends. The Apple Watch is able to monitor your respiratory rate while you sleep. Your respiratory rate is the number of breaths you take per minute, and an elevated number can signal a number of potential health issues. Last October, however, he noticed that his respiratory rate was elevated. Ken Counihan says that a combination of respiratory rate and blood oxygen data from his Apple Watch alerted him to a potentially fatal condition last fall… Apple Watch’s respiratory rate and blood oxygen dataĪs reported by local news affiliate News5 in Cleveland, Ohio, Counihan is an avid Apple Watch user, relying on the device for workout tracking, sleep tracking, and much more. A new story out of Ohio, however, is one of the first of its kind. We hear a lot of stories from Apple Watch users who say the device has alerted them to potentially life-threatening health issues.

Link apple watch to myfitnesspal