7 Reasons Why Seniors Need an Apple Watch

After 20 years of being a diehard Android lover, I caved in to my son’s prodding and became an iPhone owner. Of course, I had to get the Apple watch to go along with it! It has so many useful features that are great for seniors. I just want to share how to make life easier with our senior doodads!

• Fall detection. When your watch detects a hard fall, it alerts and gives you a choice to use your Emergency SOS contacts that you’ve set up, or you can say “I’m OK”. If you are moving, it gives you 30 seconds to respond, and if it doesn’t get a response, it automatically sets off your planned SOS. If it detects you haven’t moved in one minute, after a fall, it automatically calls your emergency contacts. It does monitor your falls in your health app, if a caregiver needs to check up on a seniors habits. I found out this truly works one day when we were goofing around and I fell off of the chair, the alert came up on my watch!

• SOS. If you press and hold the side button on your Apple watch, it will call emergency services. It does give you a 30 second pause again, if you’ve accidentally held the button, to cancel. After calling your emergency SOS numbers, it texts to notify which contacts you’ve assigned where you are located.

• Large watch face. Can I say for myself, who has reading glasses in every room, this feature is wonderful! I can set the clock to large digital numbers, and easily read the time without my glasses. Of course, you can select whichever face you would like. I also like to include the weather, a timer, and a message alert on my watch face.

• Irregular heart rhythm and heart rate notifications. So many seniors have atrial fibrillation and many don’t have symptoms when they are experiencing this. The Apple watch will send you an alert if you have a high or low heart rate, according to the parameters you have set. It does measure when you have been resting for at least 10 minutes, so it won’t alert you when you are exercising. It is also able to monitor if you have an irregular heart rhythm and will send you an alert.

• Ability to answer calls. This is one of my most used features. My phone always starts ringing when I’m in another room. This is a great feature for seniors so that they can answer the call and talk through the watch. This will prevent them from hurrying to find their phone, which can result in a fall.

• Medication reminder. The WebMD app allows us to set up reminders to take our medications. It will alert us and can even show a picture of which pill to take. We can select take, skip, or snooze. If we snooze, it will remind us again in 15 minutes. It’s always good to have a reminder!

• Stand up. The Apple watch also has a reminder to stand up. This is fabulous for we seniors that get too interested in the Hallmark channel or a Gunsmoke marathon, or even scrolling Facebook too long! It will remind you to stand when you have been sitting for an hour. This is an outstanding tool!

You see see the Apple Watch 6 on Amazon here — https://amzn.to/3a2A8i1

The Apple watch is a must have accessory for seniors to make your life easier! Tell me about your favorite apps on the Apple watch?