This New Cheap App Can Detect Heart Attacks, Saving Lives

Researchers in Washington, US, have created a smartphone app which can detect potentially deadly heart attacks and it is almost as accurate as ECG (electrocardiogram).

Scientists at the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute, US, discovered that the app is able to monitor the heart’s activity and identify whether or not a person is having STEMI (ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction) in which the artery is totally blocked.

They stated that the app offers an accuracy nearly the same as that of a standard 12-lead ECG, which doctors use to detect heart attacks.

The findings are vital since the rapid treatment after a STEMI heart failure helps save people, according to J Brent Muhlestein, Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute.

204 patients took part in this research, they got both the standard 12-lead ECG and an ECG via the app AliveCor. The app is controlled with a smartphone, two wires attached.

Scientists noticed that the app could effectively distinguish between STEMI and not STEMI ECGs more precisely and sensitively than the traditional 12-lead ECG.

Many people who use treadmills wear a heart rate detecting device, via a single ECG lead, which works more accurately than checking the pulse only.

Muhlestein added that jumping from a device to a smartphone app for recording the same ECG on many positions on the human body is a huge leap.

In a common ECG, there are 12 leads responsible for detecting at different parts, increasing the level of accuracy. But with the AliveCor app, there are only two wired leads, moving around the human body so that it can record all of the 12 parts.

Thanks to this app, a patient after suffering from a STEMI can be treated rapidly.

Muhlestein said that when somebody has a chest pain which they have never had before, they tend to think that it’s gas or a bug. This is extremely malicious since the sooner the blocked artery get opened, the better the patient.

After spotting the electrocardiogram, the app will send the outcomes to the cloud where it is immediately checked by cardiologists. In case a STEMI is detected the app will warn the person so that they can go to the hospital.

The app’s price is low, hence anyone with a smartphone can afford one for himself/herself, even if they’re in poorer countries, where the typical 12-lead ECG is too expensive.