Researchers create a new type of artificial heart-monitoring ‘membrane.’
Heart attacks can often be fatal if the right medical treatments aren’t applied quickly enough. *Some people who are at high risk of such complications will likely need some sort of monitoring or preventative system installed internally or externally.
Advancements in technology and medicine have helped scientists and doctors to create heart monitoring devices that are becoming increasingly smaller.* Building upon these developments and principles, scientists from the University of Illinois-Champaign and Washington University in St. Louis have collaborated to create what could be the next breakthrough heart monitoring device.
Using sophisticated electrodes and sensors, the researchers built a heart monitoring ‘web’ that’s capable of meticulously monitoring a heart’s current condition—more so than traditional methods.* The web of sensors and electrodes are strung together in ‘S-shaped’ webs to ensure that the device is flexible and can fit ‘snuggly’ around an individual’s heart.
In the future, the researchers are hoping they can build upon the existing heart monitoring device by adding ‘cardiac shocks’ capabilities to it, so that it can send a quick jolt of electric current to the heart in case medical professionals can’t reach the patient in time.
“When it senses such a catastrophic event as a heart or arrhythmia, it can so apply high definition therapy,” said Igor Efinmov, a biomedical engineer at the University of Washington.* “It can apply stimuli, electrical stimuli, from different locations on the device in an optimal fashion to stop arrhythmia and prevent sudden cardiac death.”
The device itself is still just a tool for monitoring how a heart responds to various conditions, but researchers are hoping that they can use all the data gathered can aid them in creating a type of anti-heart attack ‘sleeve’ that’s more capable than current medically acceptable solutions.
Source: St. Louis Public Radio
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