Health Benefits of Apple Watch to senior citizens

By: Emmanuel

If you’re looking for a way to improve your health and quality of life as you age, consider investing in a new Apple Watch. Studies have shown that wearing an Apple Watch can lead to significant health benefits for seniors, including improved heart health and decreased risk of falls.

In addition, the Apple Watch is a great tool for helping seniors stay connected with loved ones. In this article, we will take a look at the top ways the Apple Watch can benefit seniors.

Apple Watch can help the elderly exercise, stay active and healthy

One of the biggest benefits of the Apple Watch for seniors is that it helps them stay active and healthy. The Apple Watch has a built-in Activity app that tracks your daily activity, including calories burned, brisk activity, and standing time. This app can help you set goals and see how you’re doing over time.

The Apple Watch also has a built-in Workout app that lets you track your progress during workouts, including duration, distance, heart rate, and calories burned. You can even use the Workout app to track running, cycling, and swimming activities.

Also, Apple has created an exercise app called “Fitness+” that can be installed in the newer Apple watch series. The app has a range of fitness programs designed for people of all ages. You can even export your fitness metrics to other Apple devices such as iPhone and iPad. Please note that the app is subscription-based. It is a great app to help seniors track their fitness goals.

The Apple Watch tracks heart rate and ECG

Some people might think that the Apple Watch is just a luxury item that does nothing more than tell the time. However, the Apple Watch is a very powerful tool with health features that can track heart rate and ECG.

The Apple Watch monitors heart rate by considering age, weight, and sex factors. It also tracks how active you are by measuring your steps taken and calories burned. This information can help you to understand your overall health better and make changes to improve your fitness levels.

The best part about all of this tracking is that it’s all done automatically; you don’t have to do anything extra to make it happen. The Apple Watch gathers all of this health data and presents it to you in an easy-to-understand interface. This makes it a great tool for those who want to get a better handle on their heart, health, and fitness.

Newer Apple Watches like the Apple Watch Series 4 and later incorporate Electrocardiogram (ECG) test technology. An electrocardiogram (ECG) is a test that records the timing and strength of the electrical impulses that make the heartbeat. You may need to periodically take an ECG test to evaluate your heart rhythm and spot abnormalities. This can be done through an ECG app that is installed when setting up the health app.

The app measures your heartbeat and rhythm using the Apple Watch’s electrical sensor. Then, it uses these results to check if your heart’s upper and lower chambers are in rhythm. If they are out of rhythm, the app will produce a result called Atrial Fibrillation (AFib). You will need to see a doctor immediately. If your heart is in rhythm, you will get a result called Sinus Rythm.

The Find my friends App on the Apple Watch can help caregivers and families keep track of their loved ones’ whereabouts

The Find my friend App (or Find people on watchOS 6 and later) of the Apple Watch can help caregivers and families keep track of their loved ones’ whereabouts. The App can send notifications to designated contacts when the user arrives at or leaves a specific location, such as home, or work. It can also share the user’s location with designated contacts so they can see where the user is on a map.

In addition, the App can be used to create groups for sharing locations with multiple contacts simultaneously. This can be useful for tracking a group of older adults, especially those suffering from dementia. The find my friend App can be very helpful for caregivers and families who need to keep track of their loved ones’ whereabouts. It can provide peace of mind and help to keep everyone safe.

How to set up the “Find my friend App”

The App can only be set up from an iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, or iPod touch. The senior(s) to be tracked must also have the “Find my Friend” App on their Apple watch. Since this feature pulls location from devices, it can only work with Apple Watch Series with cellular. To set up the app, go to your iPhone or iPad and carry out the following steps:

Download and install the “Find my friends” app from the Appstore if it is not already on your device.
Open the App.
Tap Add.
Select a contact or enter the person to be tracked email address.
Then tap Send or Done to send the request.
The person will receive a notification request to share their location on their device and they have to accept for you to be able to track them.
After the person agrees to share their location, you can see their location in a list or on a map in the app.

Signing in with your Apple ID automatically signs you in, to the “find my friends” app. This feature works better with newer Apple Watches like the Apple Watch Series 4 and above. Please note that location services may not be available in every country/region.

How To track a senior with the “Find my friend” App

To track a senior, you must ensure that the Apple Watch they are using has cellular capabilities, and they must have accepted your request to share their location. Then, follow the steps below:

Press on the digital crown of the Apple Watch to show all installed apps.
Tap and select the find my friend app.
A list of everyone sharing their location with you will be displayed.
Other details will be displayed, such as how far off the person is and how long ago they were tagged there.
Select a contact to display their position on a map.
Also, options to Contact them or Get directions to their position will be displayed.
Lastly, the notification option allows you to set up different types of notifications for tracking a contact.

The Apple watch can remind the elderly to take their medication and eat meals on time

As we get older, it’s easy to forget things like taking our medication or eating regular meals. And if we’re not careful, these memory lapses can lead to serious health problems. The Apple Watch has a tool that can help seniors keep on top of their medication and mealtimes. This tool is the “Reminder App.”

This smartwatch’s built-in app called ” Reminders” can send alerts to users when it’s time to take their medication or eat a meal. And because the watch is always with us, there’s no risk of forgetting to take our medication.

The app is also customizable, so you can choose the time of day or the day of the week that you want to be reminded of. For example, if you always take your medication at 8 am, you can create a reminder for 8 am on your watch.

This handy feature is just one of the many reasons why the Apple Watch is a great choice for seniors. To set up reminders, follow the steps below:

Press down the digital crown to view the apps on the Apple Watch.
Select the Reminders app.
The watch will display different categorized lists of reminders.
To add a new reminder, scroll to the bottom of the lists using the digital crown and tap on “Add reminder.”
A menu will be displayed with icons that show different methods to add a reminder. The methods are voice dictation, scribble, and emojis. using any of them will add a reminder to your default home list. Using voice dictation, for example, you can say, “Take my medication at 3 pm today”.
If you want to add reminders to a specific list, you first go into the list, scroll to the bottom, and tap on the “add reminders” icon.
Siri can also set reminders directly by dictating the reminder and timing after you activate Siri.
When the time is due, the watch notifies/reminds the user to carry out the action.

Stay fit — Using the workout App of the Apple Watch

Apple Watches have a fall detection feature that can alert caregivers if the elderly falls down

Fall detection is a feature that is available for Apple Watch SE and Apple Watch Series 4 or later. The feature alerts your emergency services and emergency contacts lists (set up from the Health App on your iPhone) that it has detected a hard fall on the wearer of the Apple Watch.

When it contacts emergency personnel, it will play a looped emergency SOS message that shows that it has detected a hard fall and will also share the GPS location of the Apple watch. The user can stop the looped messages and converse with the emergency personnel before the call ends.

Turn on Wrist Detection and Fall detection for Apple Watches

For this feature to work, the Apple Watch must turn on wrist detection and fall detection. To turn these features on, follow the steps below:

Go to Settings on your Apple Watch.
Select SOS.
Select Fall Detection.
Turn it on.

Alternatively:

Launch your Apple Watch app from your iPhone.
Scroll to the bottom left and tap on the My Watch tab.
Then, tap on the Emergency SOS tab.
Scroll to the Fall Detection tab and toggle it on.

To turn on wrist detection, follow the steps below:

Go to Settings on your Apple Watch.
Select Passcode.
Turn on Wrist detection.

If you do not turn on wrist detection, Apple Watch SE and Apple Watch Series 4 or later will not automatically contact emergency services after detecting a hard fall.

A senior tracking his running with an Apple Watch

Apple Watch is also a communication device, which allows the elderly to stay connected with family and friends

The Apple Watch is not just a health and fitness device, it is also a communication device. It allows the elderly to stay connected with their family and friends. There are many ways to communicate with people using the Apple Watch:

FaceTime Audio: This is an audio version of the video calling app that can be installed on the apple watch. It allows you to call any other iPhone users who have the app on their devices. Cellular data or Wi-fi is required to make calls with Facetime audio.
Messages: This app allows you to send messages to other iPhone users. The messages can be text messages, pictures, or even voice memos.
Phone: This app allows you to make phone calls to people.
Contacts: This app allows you to view your contacts list and call or message any of your contacts.
Walkie-Talkie: There are apps on the Apple Watch that allow you to send short voice messages like walkie-talkie users.
Social Media: You can also use social media apps such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram on Apple watches.

Wrap up

The Apple Watch is not just for the young and healthy. The elderly can also use it to keep track of their health and stay entertained. In this blog post, we’ve looked at some of the health benefits the Apple Watch offers seniors. These include fall detection, heart monitoring, and activity tracking.

We’ve also seen how the Apple Watch can be used for communication purposes, such as making phone calls and sending messages. The Apple Watch is a versatile device that can be used for various purposes. It’s perfect for the elderly because it helps. If you’re an elderly person considering buying an Apple Watch, we hope this blog post has been helpful.

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