How a watch helped save David's life and get him back on the road to travel

Two years ago the usually fit and healthy lawyer, David Heidtman, was feeling very unwell.

The 74-year-old had not long returned from a trip to the Kimberleys followed by a cruise from Broome to Darwin with his wife Lesley and some friends. Several of his fellow cruisers fell sick with COVID and David also felt under the weather but tested negative to the virus.

Back home David was still feeling unwell before noticing an unexpected message on his smartwatch. It was warning him of atrial fibrillation - an irregular heartbeat, often known as AF, which untreated can lead to serious medical complications, including blood clots, stroke and heart failure.

Medical tests confirmed David had AF and he underwent procedures to shock the heart into a correct rhythm and then ablation where tiny scars are made on the surface of the heart. The scars block faulty heart signals and restore a typical heartbeat.

Now David is back to feeling great again and is once more confident about travelling because he knows his smartwatch is monitoring his heart rhythm, and he can even get it to do an ECG which he can then forward to his cardiologist.

"It's taken a big weight off my mind," he said.

Associate Professor Chrishan Nalliah a clinical academic electrophysiologist with MQ Health Cardiology, said some smartwatches could record a heart rhythm while others could also perform an ECG. Some watches are registered with the Therapeutic Goods Administration.

Professor Crishan said the fit of the watch was important as a lot of the data is recorded based on blood flow under the skin.

"If your watch is not fitted well or you are liable to get a lot of sweat and things under the watch, the data might be spurious."

AF is a major public health issue with half a million sufferers in Australia. In 2020-21 an estimated $1.4 billion was spent on AF, making it the second most expensive cardiovascular disease condition in Australia.