New PDA Listens To Your Heartbeat

Roland Piquepaille writes "CardioNet Inc., a company based in San Diego, has developed a wireless technology to monitor heart patients. According to this Computerworld article, the technology was 'originally developed by Qualcomm Inc. to track and send messages to large truck fleets.' CardioNet's service is initially focused on the 2 million U.S. people suffering from arrhythmia. Each patient is equipped with a PDA-type electrocardiogram (ECG) monitoring device connected by a short-range wireless system to electrodes on his chest. Data is sent to his doctor via a built-in cell phone chip. More details, including a diagram and pictures showing how the system works are also available."

Comments

Re:well

[Anonymous Coward]

I happen to have arrhythmia. First note that there is wide variation in how arrhythmia affects people. For example, I'm not sure if this device would help me because my condition is not an extreme form of arrhythmia.

By itself, arrhythmia is not particularly serious; however, it can have serious secondary effects. Basically arrhythmia messes up the circulation of blood, which can lead to blood clots (because of pools of blood that aren't moving), which can lead to stroke, which is serious.

I'm currently on medication, which keeps my heart out of arrhythmia. However, it is possible that I occasionally go in and out of arrhythmia without knowing it. If I could establish that I'm not going into arrhythmia, then I could drop one of the medications I'm taking to lessen the chance of blood clots. This particular medication requires that I make periodic visits to a clinic to get the dose "calibrated."

Thus, the point of the device is to determine if the person being monitored is going in and out of arrhythmia and what kind of arrhythmia it is. Thus, in turn affects the treatment of the individual with respect to surgery, medication, etc.