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Heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Regular doctor visits and a healthy lifestyle can help reduce the risk of heart disease, but many new technological advances are making it easier for both patients and doctors to monitor and assess cardiovascular health. new tools will be provided for
“This is a huge area that will become common in patient care in the future,” said Dr. Chen-Han Chen, a cardiologist and medical director of the Structural Heart Program at MemorialCare Saddleback Medical Center in California. said. Today’s medical news.
“We look forward to implementing these technologies in clinical practice,” he added.
Here are five new technological advances for monitoring heart health.
Electrocardiography (or ECG or EKG) monitoring provides a concise, at-a-glance indicator of a person’s heart rate. In fact, if you currently wear a smartwatch, you likely already have this feature on your wrist.
However, one of the issues with wearable smart devices is battery life. Continuous heart monitoring inevitably causes power to drop and require recharging.
However, in the near future this may not be an issue.
Chinese researchers are developing a soft, wearable electrocardiogram device that is essentially a sensor with electrodes that can be taped directly to the skin, generating energy from the wearer’s movements. . This means there is no need to charge the device externally, as the electrodes draw power from the body.
said Dr. Shalini Prasad, professor and chair of the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Texas at Dallas. Today’s medical news Multiple devices can be attached to multiple areas of the body, meaning they may be more accurate than smartwatches.
“It measures just like the Apple Watch, but the more points you have, the more accurate it is,” she explained. “So they’re currently trying to find ways and strategies to do that.”
Test strips are not new, as they have been used for decades as blood glucose meters, urine tests, and for a variety of other purposes.
A new type of test strip announced as a proof of concept could be a game-changer in assessing heart health.
Researchers say they have developed a paper strip to measure blood serum, which they say provides measurements of three known markers of heart failure.
The simple test provides results in about 30 minutes, and you can enter these results directly into your smartphone using a dedicated reader.
Placing sensors inside the body could provide important information about a person’s heart health and recovery after surgery.
However, these inorganic devices must be removed in most cases, requiring invasive follow-up surgery.
A new generation of implants that can measure lactic acid, volatile organic compounds, pH balance, and pressure may provide some of these same insights, all without having to be removed.
“Monitoring your recovery is very important after heart surgery,” Prasad said. “So how can we do that inside the body? These sensors are biocompatible and breakable, so they can be easily broken down without another surgery. There may be technology available to monitor heart health off-site, without the need for a trip.”
Cardiac stents are an invaluable tool for treating people with heart disease.
The principle is simple. A stent is essentially a tube that is placed within a coronary artery to keep it open and facilitate blood flow to the heart.
However, there are some caveats to traditional stents.
Although designed to be permanent, they can become narrower and less effective over time. They may also be more prone to various complications. Finally, they work on a mechanical level, but do not provide data on how they are holding up.
Various researchers have been working on ways to make stents more reliable and durable. This allows doctors to gain insight into various risk factors within the stent before they become major problems in the future.
Some of the more interesting studies have proposed self-reporting stents that provide more data than previous “smart” stents thanks to larger induction coils and external antennas. This method detects whether blood is flowing as expected.
“Such technology can be monitored in a relatively non-invasive manner, allowing data to be transferred over the internet or other frameworks, making it possible to monitor patient health through telemedicine,” Prasad said. Stated. “So we see this kind of technology having an impact on cardiovascular disease.”
Blood tests can tell a lot about a person.
In fact, new research shows that biomarkers in the blood may help assess brain health after experiencing a cardiac event.
Experiments in mice show that immune cells in the blood may indicate whether the brain is inflamed or damaged after cardiac arrest.
This means that doctors may one day be able to more accurately predict and improve brain recovery after a cardiac event with just a simple blood test.
It’s no exaggeration to say that doctors today have more diagnostic tools than ever before. And thanks to new medical advances, accuracy will continue to improve.
Chen said sensors that provide continuous information could be more useful than diaries or self-assessments.
“Without this kind of long-term, continuous monitoring, we won’t be able to diagnose many of the difficult problems that we need to have,” he said. “For example, a patient might tell their doctor that they have symptoms every few days. With a monitor, patients can take it home and wear it, giving them continuous information that they wouldn’t get otherwise. These are very important in diagnosing many conditions.”
