The toilet seat that could save millions of lives by detecting heart failure

Scientists have invented a toilet seat that could detect signs of heart failure before the onset of symptoms.

The gadget fits on the top of a normal seat and contains sensors that measure the heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen level of the user through the legs.

Its inventors claim that the product could save millions of lives and facilitate the follow-up of patients at risk with accurate information in real time.

Toilet seats, which currently cost 1,500 pounds each, are not cheap, but they could allow hospitals to save money and improve the health of the population, said Researchers.

The toilet seat, invented by scientists in New York, fits on a normal toilet seat and incorporates sensors to capture the heart rate and blood pressure of the user.

The inventors said that the gadget provides a simple way to monitor patients at risk of heart failure when they are at home and save lives by detecting symptoms at an early stage.

The inventors of the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York have designed and manufactured the headquarters, which he hopes will reduce hospital admission rates.

About a quarter of patients with heart failure are readmitted to the hospital within 30 days of their discharge, the researchers said, while 45% of them are brought back within six weeks .

By monitoring patients at home – and not asking them to do anything other than what comes naturally – doctors can monitor them more closely.

This also reduces the risk of errors that would otherwise occur if people were doing their own monitoring with the help of other devices.

And the data from headquarters, which is Wi-Fi compatible, can be automatically forwarded to doctors if necessary so that they can decide if a person needs treatment.

"This system can potentially solve many of the problems badociated with home surveillance," the inventors wrote in a report published in the journal JMIR mHealth.

They said that the seat could solve the problems of convincing people to take reliable measurements themselves, because it would do for them without additional effort.

They added: "Such a device could enable new approaches and capabilities in the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular disease, including, but not limited to, people with heart failure."

"If successful," said the report, "this strategy could potentially lighten the burden of heart failure and cardiovascular disease on the healthcare industry and improve the quality of life of patients" .

The developers said the headquarters would facilitate proactive monitoring of patient care, by monitoring them before the onset of symptoms, instead of being responsive, and only being able to help when someone is already sick.

And the legs could be a good place for this monitoring because the aorta – the largest artery in the body – extends into the thighs.

Heart failure is a serious condition in which the heart can not properly pump blood into the body, often because of its weakness or stiffness.

According to its inventors, the toilet seat could look for obvious signs by noting when the volume of oxygen in the blood is low, when the blood pressure is high and when smaller amounts of blood are pumped with each action.

Heart failure is not curable, but it is treatable. If left untreated, it can cause shortness of breath, fatigue and dizziness.

This disease increases the risk of kidney and liver damage or heart damage.

A test of toilet seats, manufactured by the company Heart Health Intelligence, will be conducted on 150 cardiac patients from the United States.

They are battery powered, waterproof, wireless and require no configuration or programming from the patient.