Medical News
Fitness trackers like the Apple Watch now allow you to detect heart conditions such as atrial fibrillation. That’s not always a good thing, says doctor Margaret McCartney
Technology
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17 July 2019
Josie FordBy Margaret McCartney
SELF-EMPOWERED, self-motivated, self-aware: we have got used to the idea that more knowledge about our health is good for us. This ethos has fuelled an explosion in wearable technologies – fitness trackers, step counters and other gizmos – that give us real-time feedback on key physiological stats such as heart rate.
Recently, the makers of the bestselling fitness tracker, the Apple Watch, began to roll out a new feature: the ability to monitor heart rhythm, and specifically to detect atrial fibrillation.
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Atrial fibrillation is a relatively common heart …