A study from the World Health Organization has concluded that Indians and South Asians are more prone to first heart attacks at the age of 53 and it also estimated that by 2010, 60 per cent Indians of the world would be cardiac patients.
Here’s the world’s smallest wearable cardiac monitor, a toffee-sized silicon locket that can store a week’s electrocardiogram (ECG) data, eliminating the need to visit hospitals.
This device has been developed by the Indian Institute Technology, Bombay (IIT-B) in collaboration with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). IIT professor Rakesh Lal, of the School of Bioscience and Bioengineering, has conceptualized the project with Professor S. Mukherji.
Rakesh Lal told Hindustan Times, “I would be the first to buy one for my mother. The basic device is like plug-and-play. There isn’t another product like the silicon locket. Similar ECG monitors in the market are walkman-sized or bigger.â€
Algorithms have been fed into this monitor to mark the difference between jerks from running, working out or climbing stairs and heartbeats that are not rhythmic. The patients have to wear this locket with five electrodes on the chest, a sensor that records the heart’s electrical activity or ECG.
“The locket is a hi-tech solution delivered in a low-tech fashion. A user could also send its data card to a hospital to download ECG,” expressed Professor Dinesh Sharma, who heads the project, funded by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) at IIT’s microelectronics department.
As soon as the monitor detects abnormalities, it automatically transmits the last few seconds of ECG data to a central server with the help of a mobile phone interface. Called the trans-telephonic ECG device, it transmits ECG from village through telephone lines.
The demand for a user-friendly cardiac monitor is essential in India, where, as top cardiologist Devi Shetty puts it, ‘heart disease is like an epidemic.’ “Indians are genetically three times more vulnerable to heart attacks than Europeans. The average age of my patients in India is 45 years. Fathers bring their young sons for bypass grafting,†Dr Shetty, Chairman, Narayana Hrudayalaya, told HT.
If the patient is not feeling well and uneasy, he/she needs to press a locket button to mark that data. This device has to be hooked to mobile phones that will be programmed to send SMSes of the marked segment for the doctors to check along with heart activity.
