This smartphone app can identify heart attacks



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A new smartphone app can help you determine if you have the most serious and deadly form of heart attack and could prove to be a valuable tool for saving lives, say the researchers. The AliveCor application, administered via a smartphone with a two-wire connection, can monitor cardiac activity and determine if a person has myocardial infarction with elevation of height (STEMI) – a heart attack in which the artery is completely blocked.

The application has almost the same accuracy as a standard 12-lead electrocardiogram (ECG), used to diagnose heart attacks. He can take the ECG on the spot, send the results to the cloud where a cardiologist can examine and, if a STEMI is found, inform the person so that he can be transported to the hospital.

"The sooner the artery is opened, the better the patient will do. We found that this application could dramatically speed things up and save your life, "said J. Brent Muhlestein, senior investigator at the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute in Salt Lake City, United States.

The results were presented at the 2018 scientific session of the American Heart Association in Chicago. In the study, 204 patients with chest pain received a standard 12-lead ECG and an ECG via the AliveCor application.

He was able to effectively distinguish STEMI ECGs from non-STEMI ECGs with high sensitivity compared to a traditional 12-lead ECG.

While a typical ECG has 12 leads, which improves the accuracy of a diagnosis because heart attacks occur in different parts of the heart, the application AliveCor has two leads that are moved around the body in order to record the 12 parts.

In addition to accelerating treatment after a STEMI heart attack, the inexpensive app can also make ECGs accessible in places like third world countries where people have a smartphone, but where it's hard to find expensive ECG devices, the researchers said.

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