An electronic stethoscope on a smartphone could pave the way for doctors to monitor patients’ hearts remotely.
The traditional doctor’s stethoscope was invented in 1816, but almost 200 years later it is possible to place a smartphone on your chest and record a heartbeat.
An app developed by a team including King’s College London records not only the basic ‘lub-dub’ of a beating heart but the sounds in between of its valves opening and closing.
Its main use in the future could be to reveal if someone has a heart murmur, which causes an abnormal ‘swishing’ sound between heartbeats, and indicates someone has a heart valve condition.
It could also provide extra information to detect atrial fibrillation, which affects more than a million people in the UK.
An electronic stethoscope on a smartphone could pave the way for doctors to monitor patients’ hearts remotely
The traditional doctor’s stethoscope was invented in 1816, but almost 200 years later it is possible to place a smartphone on your chest and record a heartbeat
Atrial fibrillation, better known as an irregular heartbeat, is best picked up by an echocardiogram, which can be incorporated in a smart watch, but the app could provide more information in the future.
New research on the Echoes app, due to be presented at the New Scientist Live event in London this weekend, shows more than 80 per cent of people are able to accurately create a good-quality recording of their heart by placing their phone on their chest.
Analysis of 1,148 users showed people could detect their own heartbeat regardless of their sex or weight, although over-60s took a little longer to get used to the technology.
The app is also used by people to keep mementos of dying loved ones, by recording their heartbeat.
Pablo Lamata, professor of biomedical engineering at the School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences, King’s College London, who helped to develop the app, said: ‘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 existence or progression of heart conditions.’
The app was developed in partnership with Maastricht University and a private company called Cellule Design Studio, with input from consultants and patients at the British Heart Foundation and Evelina Children’s Heart Organisation (ECHO).
A study published in European Heart Journal – Digital Health collected more than 7,500 heart sound recordings from international users last year.
It found 75 per cent were good quality, and most of these were achieved within three attempts using a smartphone’s inbuilt microphone.
Users simply hold their phone against their chest in one of four recommended areas, hit record, then save the audio file.
Once someone has saved a recording of their heart on the Echoes app, which launched last May, it is added to a database for researchers to analyse for sound quality and medical implications
Once someone has saved a recording of their heart on the Echoes app, which launched last May, it is added to a database for researchers to analyse for sound quality and medical implications.
Users receive no diagnoses or recommendations to contact a doctor, but the app could provide this in the future.
Professor James Leiper, associate medical director at the British Heart Foundation, which also helped to fund the research (SUBS – pls keep), said (SUBS – pls keep): ‘Further research is needed to test how the app can be used in tandem with existing heart monitoring techniques.
‘However, if successful, this development could mark an important step towards having heart monitoring tools at your fingertips.’
Samantha Johnson, chief executive of ECHO, said: ‘For children living with heart conditions hearing their own heartbeat and comparing it to family or friends has been fun and opened conversations about their heart conditions.’