Florida Atlantic University's Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing and College of Engineering and Computer Science have collaborated to develop a prototype of a cutting-edge wearable device that can continuously monitor all of the physiological indicators connected to heart failure in real time.
The device tracks thoracic impedance, electrocardiogram (ECG), heart rate, and motion activity detection using sensors integrated into a thin belt that may be worn comfortably around the waist.
The system monitors these variables using a variety of sensors. Thoracic impedance is a crucial bio-signal for tracking the development of heart failure.
The ECG is a vital bio-signal for the diagnosis and prognosis of cardiovascular disorders. When combined with the other metrics, patient activity can show changes in energy and paint a picture of the patient's heart failure status.
For the study, which was published in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers evaluated the wearable gadget in a number of situations, including sitting, standing, lying down, and walking. Results for each sensor under each condition were collected successively. Identification of heart failure symptoms depends heavily on the physiological characteristics selected.
The findings showed that every sensor tracked alterations in all possible situations. The precise highlighting of positional changes by the position sensor under various conditions may be used to determine who was wearing the device.
The heart rate was continuously tracked by the heart rate sensor. It is important that the instrument correctly highlighted minute differences in thoracic impedance.
Like other ECG monitor sensors, the wearable device's ECG sensor was particularly sensitive to movement, especially when walking.
However, even when the subject was moving, the ECG sensor kept its R-peaks and QRS complex, which are vital indicators of left ventricular hypertrophy and an increase in the size of the myocardial fibres in the major cardiac pumping chamber. The electrical impulse that passes through the heart's ventricles is known as the QRS complex.
According to the researchers, this technology will have increased heart failure specificity, high sensitivity, and stronger predictive values.
The results of the study have prompted researchers to test the module on various patients to develop an algorithm that can forecast heart failure based on the test set.
