Category: Heart

  • Tiny sensor monitors the heart, recognizes speech, enables human-machine interfaces

    Tiny sensor monitors the heart, recognizes speech, enables human-machine interfaces

    Northwestern professor John Rogers has released a paper detailing his latest tiny, wearable, flexible, highly accurate health sensor, which monitors the heart, recognizes speech, and can enable human-machine interfaces.  Professor Yonggang Huang is the corresponding author. The soft, continuous monitor adheres to any part of the body, detecting mechanical waves that propagate through tissues and fluids…

  • Voice analysis as a diagnostic tool

    Voice analysis as a diagnostic tool

    Beyond Verbal recently used its emotion-detecting voice analysis app in an attempt to predict coronary artery disease in 150 study participants, 120 of whom had presented for angiography.  The company claims to have identified 13 voice features  associated with CAD – and one associated with a 19-fold increase in its likelihood. The researchers said that…

  • Verily developing low-power health wearable

    Verily developing low-power health wearable

    While visiting Verily last week, an MIT Technology Review journalist saw and described the company’s wearable vital tracker, called the “Cardiac and Activity Monitor” by  CTO Brian Otis.  Its novelty is a low-power e-paper display, which will address the universal problem of battery life.  Only with guaranteed continuous measurement can meaningful data be gathered and health analyzed. The…

  • Electronic scaffold replaces damaged tissue, stimulates heart

    Electronic scaffold replaces damaged tissue, stimulates heart

    Charles Lieber and Harvard colleagues have designed nanoscale electronic scaffolds, seeded with cardiac cells to produce a “bionic” patch to replace damaged cardiac tissue.  The flexible electronics can also electrically stimulate the heart, and change the frequency and direction of signal propagation, as tissue feedback is continuously monitored. Instead of being located on the skin’s…

  • Wearable detects cardiac arrest, notifies emergency services

    Wearable detects cardiac arrest, notifies emergency services

     iBeat is a wearable emergency response system that continuously monitors the heart.  Meant for seniors, it detects cardiac arrest in real time, provides alerts, and sends regular updates to caregivers. If cardiac arrest is detected, the wearer receives a call within 10 seconds.  If he/she cannot be reached, an emergency contact and emergency medical services…

  • Wearable patch simultaneously monitors biochemical, electric signals

    Wearable patch simultaneously monitors biochemical, electric signals

    Joe Wang and Patrick Mercier of UCSD have developed a flexible, wearable, patch that monitors both biochemical and electric signals. Most  wearables only measure one parameter, such as steps or heart rate, and few measure chemical signals. The Chem-Phys patch records EKG signals, and tracks lactate levels, marking physical effort, in real time.  It  is worn on…

  • Sports camera collects, overlays health data

    Sports camera collects, overlays health data

    As part of its new developer program, GoPro has partnered with Polar to overlay health data on videos. Similar to video games, sports videos will be able to display heart rate, speed, distance, and altitude.  This has been presented as a fun feature, but could also provide physicians with a better understanding of one’s health in various…

  • Heart monitoring patch tracks patients post-discharge

    BeVITAL by Vital Connect, in partnership with BePatient, is a clinical grade, continuous, heart monitoring wearable, and data sharing system, for the early detection of abnormalities post-discharge. The thin, disposable patch adheres to the chest, and tracks heart activity, breathing, temperature, movement, posture, and falls. It can be used for 4 days, and transmits data to a…

  • Self-regulating heart patch combines electronics, living tissue

    Self-regulating heart patch combines electronics, living tissue

    Tal Dvir and Tel Aviv University colleagues are in the early stages of developing a “bionic” heart patch, made of of electronically-regulated living tissue, that they believe can help the heart beat, and react when malfunction occurs. The  patch is made of heart muscle cells, biomaterial, and nano-composite fibers that enable the engineered-tissue function to be…

  • Wrist-worn wearable detects Atrial Fibrillation, sends alerts

    Wrist-worn wearable detects Atrial Fibrillation, sends alerts

    AliveCor is known for its FDA approved mobile EKG, which attaches to a phone or tablet.  The company has just announced  Kardia – an Apple Watch band that, when a sensor is pressed and paired with an app, can provide and accurate EKG, incorporate a user’s spoken symptoms into its analysis, and share data.  AliveCor said that…

  • Wearable VR system guides coronary artery surgery

    Wearable VR system guides coronary artery surgery

    Maksymilian Opolski of the Cardinal Wyszynski Institute of Cardiology used a VR system combining a custom app and Google Glass to clear a blocked coronary artery. The patient had chronic total occlusion, which  is difficult to clear with catheter-based percutaneous coronary intervention.   Surgeons often cannot visualize the blockage with CTA imaging. The system provided 3D reconstructions of the artery during the procedure,…

  • Ingestible sensor continuously monitors heart, breathing rates

    Ingestible sensor continuously monitors heart, breathing rates

    MIT researchers are developing ingestible sensors that measure heart  and breathing rates from within the gastrointestinal tract using sound waves. This type of sensor could make it easier to assess trauma patients, monitor soldiers in battle, perform long-term evaluation of patients with chronic illnesses, or improve training for professional and amateur athletes, the researchers say.…