Apple Watch user credits high heart rate monitoring feature with detecting irregularity

The heart monitoring features of the Apple Watch are again being credited with alerting a user to an undiagnosed condition. As 24 News reports, 25-year-old Zachary Zies was notified by his watch of a high resting heart rate at 210 beats per minute.

As the report explains, Zies, a recent graduate of Ohio State University, has battled Friedreich’s ataxia for most of his life and been in a wheelchair since middle school. Friedreich’s ataxia is a rare genetic disease that can cause difficulties walking and affect speech and sensation in the arms and legs.

Zies is an avid Apple Watch user, and his watch alerted him to a high resting heart rate of 210 beats per minute. As it turns out, Zies required an atrial ablation to correct the atrial flutter. “The Apple Watch was pretty much telling me something is up, and you need to go in and get help to see what’s actually wrong,” he said.

Following the procedure, Zies’ heart rate is back to normal, and he says he’s at about 90% recovery today.

Apple Watch allows you to set a “High Heart Rate” notification threshold. When you do this, your Apple Watch will send a push notification when it detects a heart rate above that threshold during a period of 10 minutes of inactivity. Here’s how to customize your high and low heart rate alerts for Apple Watch:

1. On your iPhone, open the Apple Watch app.
2. Tap the My Watch tab, then tap Heart.
3. Tap High Heart Rate, then choose a BPM.
4. Tap Low Heart Rate, then choose a BPM.

This isn’t the first time an Apple Watch has been credited with detecting abnormal heart conditions. Last year, a woman in North Carolina said her Apple Watch detected an abnormally high heart rate and diagnosing her with the heart condition.

Read more about Apple Watch:

• Should Apple Watch fall detection be enabled for all ages by default?
• Apple Watch credited with alerting Seattle man his A-fib had returned, potentially preventing stroke
• Apple Watch customer identifies A-fib heart condition after dismissing symptoms as ‘holiday anxiety’
• Apple Watch user discovers A-fib heart issue with new ECG app, ‘this probably saved you,’ says doctor

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