HAMPTON, Va. — Tom Morehouse is an avid golfer. The Hampton retiree was out on the course one day and his Apple Watch vibrated.
"I looked down and it said 'you're in atrial fibrillation' and I said 'That can't be, that must be an anomaly or something", so I continued on. I didn't feel anything."
His Apple Watch also has an ECG, an electrocardiogram function to check for an irregular heartbeat. He showed me how it works, "This records onto my iPhone, and I can just send this to my cardiologist." He says he checked it when he got the notification about being an atrial fibrillation and it looked normal.
I asked Tom how many times he was getting these notifications from his watch, "Over the course of a month or so, probably a dozen times", he replied and said he didn't really think much about it.
That eventually changed after a recent encounter, as he explained, "I went give - went to give blood at the Red Cross and the technician said, 'I'm not going to allow you to give blood because you have an irregular heartbeat." He said it really took the technician a long time of listening with a stethoscope and re-checking before refusing to let him give blood and he told that technician, "I said my Apple Watch was telling me something; I should've listened."
That prompted to eventually be seen by Sentara Healthcare cardiologist Dr. Erich Kiehl, who said, "When we actually looked at his Apple Watch tracings, the Apple Watch tracings weren't actually correct. He actually was in normal rhythm; so we did further workup, including an ultrasound of his heart and what he actually had aortic stenosis", a blockage with the main valve going to his heart.
So, Tom didn't have atrial fibrillation, but Dr. Kiehl points out, "Although the watch was wrong, it was helpful because it was picking up something that got him to us."
Tom admits, "In retrospect, there were a lot of clues, because I would get winded and just get worn out, after what I consider not much exercise at all."
Tom was referred to Sentara Heart Hospital for a procedure, a transcatheter aortic valve replacement. He had a blockage in the main valve going to his heart, and it's a good thing he got it fixed, says Dr. Kiehl. "If he had not had that procedure done, his life expectancy would be somewhere on the order of 6 months to a year."
It was another Sentara cardiologist, Dr. Matthew Summers, who actually replaced that critical valve in a procedure that no longer requires open heart surgery.
Dr. Kiehl feels pretty strongly about certain fitness trackers, "So, in his case, I would actually say his Apple Watch probably saved his life." He added that it's not just Tom coming in. Just this year alone, he's evaluated 25 to 30 patients for various heart issues due to alerts from their Apple Watch.
Tom of course, feels pretty strongly about his watch, too, "Ohh, I'm not without it," he says with a laugh. The Apple Watch, or the Fitbit or whatever you're wearing is with you almost all day, every day so it can do things that you're not aware of", because Tom admits, sometimes we don't listen to our bodies, "We do not, we do not, yeah, I learned that."
