[Gadgets] Could a phone app become an easy, at-home heart monitor?

[FazzNoth]

• Researchers assessed the feasibility of using a smartphone’s inbuilt microphone to record heart sounds by investigating the quality of smartphone-recorded heart sounds and the factors influencing the quality of the recordings.
• Overall, three out of four recordings were of good quality, meaning that they could be processed further to obtain medically relevant data.
• The results indicate that heart sound quality is not influenced by phone version or by the user’s biological sex, but users aged over 60 seemed to have lower-quality recordings.
• This study paves the way for a future where individuals, particularly those with heart problems, can easily record their own heart sounds at home, thus improving the diagnostic process.

 

Everyone is familiar with the “lub-dub… lub-dub” sounds the heart makes. The reason that the heart makes these sounds is related to its function of circulating blood throughout the body.

The heart muscle pumps blood by continuously contracting and relaxing. During contraction of the heart, we hear the “lub” sound, known as the first heart sound, S1, and during relaxation of the heart, we hear the “dub” sound the second heart sound, S2.

The traditional tool used by doctors to listen to heart sounds is the stethoscope.

Heart sounds may be a useful marker in heart failure, but currently, they are only assessed in a clinical setting. It would be useful for patients to be able to record their own heart sounds when they are at home.

One possible way in which heart sounds may be easily captured by individuals in the comfort of their own homes is by using a smartphone with an inbuilt high-quality microphone. To date, several mobile app prototypes for recording heart sounds have been developed and made available to the public, including iStethoscopeTrusted Source and CPstethoscopeTrusted Source.

 

Now, researchers at King’s College London in the United Kingdom and Maastricht University in the Netherlands have conducted a study to investigate the feasibility of using a smartphone as a stethoscope and to assess the potential factors that influence the quality of heart sound recordings.

“This research proves that mobile technologies are a viable way of recording heart sounds and that in the future, cardiac patients and doctors could use at-home recordings to check for [the] existence or progression of heart conditions,” says Dr. Pablo Lamata, study co-author and professor of biomedical engineering at King’s College London.

Given the scale and speed of our technological advancement during the past few decades, it is no surprise that around 4.68 billion people will use a cell phone by 2019.

In the United States, just “40 percent [of general physicians] have evening and weekend working hours,” which may isolate a great number of patients in the U.S. who work 9–5.

However, in developing African countries such as Zimbabwe, the situation is much worse.

There is just one doctor per 10,000 people. Similar scenarios present themselves in many other developing countries.

According to the 2014 Information and Communication Technology Household Survey by the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency — “at national level, the proportion of households with at least one household member with a [cell phone] at home was about 89 percent compared [with] about 11 percent without.”

It may therefore appear intuitive to exploit the growing worldwide po[CENSORED]rity of cell phones and other such personal electronic devices to create more convenient healthcare for all.

Indeed, “The proliferation of cell phones across the globe, even in locales without basic healthcare infrastructure, is spurring the growth of mHealth in developing countries,” according to West Wireless Health.

However, despite the global advent of electronic health (eHealth) and, more specifically, mobile health (mHealth) during the past couple of decades, many individuals remain unsure of its uses and benefits.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/322865