Man suffering from life-threatening blood clot symptoms discovered through Apple Watch data

Respiratory Rate and Blood Oxygen Data for Apple Watch

Counihan is an avid Apple Watch user, relying on the device for workout tracking, sleep tracking, and more. Last October, however, he noticed his breathing rate had increased. Your respiratory rate is the number of breaths you take per minute, and elevated numbers can indicate a number of underlying health problems.

Apple Watch can monitor your breathing rate while you sleep. Because Counihan wears an Apple Watch for sleep tracking, the Health app is able to collect his breathing rate and look for trends and changes in those trends. The Health app offers a Health Trends feature that notifies you when specific metrics change.

In his case, Counihan decided to go to outpatient care, where he had an X-ray and was eventually sent home with bronchitis medication.

"I got an alert in October that my respiratory rate was elevated. So basically you have a certain number of breaths per minute, basically I went from 14 to 17 times or 18 times," Counihan said. "My wife asked me to call my son and he suggested I go to an outpatient clinic, which I did. They just did an X-ray. They gave me some medicine for bronchitis."

Later that day, however, Counihan received another alert on his Apple Watch: His blood oxygen levels were dropping. “My blood oxygen — which is usually in the 90s, should be in the 95s — started going into the 80s,” he said. At the request of his family, Counihan reluctantly went to the emergency room.

Using the numbers he provided from his Apple Watch, plus additional vital signs collected by the emergency room, the doctor ordered a CT scan. A CT scan revealed the root cause of Counihan's symptoms. “They took me for a CT scan and they found I had blood clots all over my lungs,” he said.

Counihan was subsequently prescribed blood thinners and "feels better" and credits the Apple Watch with saving his life. He said doctors told him that if he had gone to bed that night instead of going to the emergency room, he "probably wouldn't have woken up the next morning."

“What the doctor followed up with was that if I didn’t go in, which he said 60% of people have at that stage – if I went to sleep, I would probably wake up the next morning Not coming," Counihan said.

"I have three children and two grandchildren and hopefully more grandchildren in the next few years and I just want to keep enjoying it," Counihan said. "I have friends who went out and bought an Apple Watch. I just had dinner with a friend the other night...and now he wants to buy an Apple Watch too. It saved my life. It's amazing."

## Dr. Lucy Franjic, an emergency physician at the Cleveland Clinic, echoed Counihan's praise of the Apple Watch: "We do have patients coming in and they do notice.' My heart rate is higher than usual' or 'This is a sign that I...my heart rhythm is not normal'," Franjic said. "So having this information can help doctors try to diagnose the underlying problem and help prevent any life-threatening emergencies."

This is also the first time (if not the first time) we’ve seen the Apple Watch’s blood oxygen feature used for such a purpose. Apple itself says the blood oxygen feature is "designed for general fitness and health purposes only," but the data can obviously still be widely used as a reference point for other health concerns.

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