A wearable, “dry” electrocardiogram could provide continuous monitoring of heart conditions without causing the discomfort or skin irritation from conventional ECGs.
The unnamed prototype consists of a lightweight, gel-free “patch” that could transmit data wirelessly, researchers state.
Although anyone can have a heart condition, checking for symptoms is particularly important for older adults. Over three fourths of Americans aged more than 60 years have some form of cardiovascular disease, according to the American Heart Association.
“Regular and repetitive ECG measurements are often needed for patients with cardiovascular ailments,” study authors stated. “These sensors could find potential futuristic applications as standalone wearable ECG sensors or could also be embedded within wearable textiles for PoC and ambulatory care applications.”
Older adults who are discharged from hospitals to skilled nursing facilities — many of whom are aged more than 80 years — are at high risk for further heart complications, one study showed.
Many long-term care spaces, particularly skilled nursing facilities, are adopting tools to monitor residents’ heart conditions. That often comes in the form of remote sensor tech, if not actual ECGs, which can show when resting heart rate is elevated.
Wherever they live, not enough older adults are using heart monitors to help clinicians or caregivers know when there’s a problem, experts have warned.
To test the dry patch, the researchers checked how the sensors worked under various conditions, including where on the body the patch was placed, how large the contact area was, and how conductive and/or stable the electrical signal was, the study authors said.
The patch is one of several such ECG tools currently in development.
Another possible wearable in development is a textile patch that uses nanomagnets and conductive yarn, researchers demonstrated earlier this summer.
Tools that use artificial intelligence to assist with cardiac monitoring also are becoming available and can help parse out “noisy” data from body movements, according to computer scientists at Yale. The recent ECG study, which was conducted by researchers in India and Australia, is available online now and will be part of the December issue of Applied Physics Reviews.
