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Finnish necklace represents a new era for self-monitoring heart rhythm
Heart2Save, a Finnish specialist in cardiac arrhythmia, and Lumoava, a Finnish jewellery brand, have joined forces to create a necklace that enables anyone to monitor their heart rhythm stylishly and subtly, be they at home, at work or on holiday.
The necklace is embedded with a single-lead electrocardiogram and users place it between the palms of their hands or between the palm of their hand and chest for 30 seconds. It sends the heart rhythm data to the cloud for artificial intelligence-powered analysis and displays the results on the user’s smartphone in a matter of seconds.
It also generates an electrocardiogram record that allows physicians to confirm the automatic diagnosis.
Heart2Save and Lumoava view that the user experience is crucial for any product intent on standing out from the rapidly growing offering of wearables for identifying and screening for cardiac arrhythmia.
“The consumer experience is vital,” acknowledgedHelena Jäntti, CEO of Heart2Save.
“The products must be easy and practical to use in everyday life. Stylish design and ease of use play a significant role in how the consumer embraces the product in the long run.”
Positive results
A study examining the diagnostic accuracy of the “ingenious” necklace was carried out by the University of Eastern Finland. It found that it is capable of producing high-quality readings and detecting and diagnosing atrial fibrillation, the most common type of cardiac arrhythmia, at a high level of accuracy.
Atrial fibrillation is one of the leading causes of stroke, but it is challenging to detect and diagnose on account that it is often intermittent and symptomless.
The 145 study participants used the necklace to measure their heart rhythm while simultaneously undergoing a three-lead electrocardiogram recording. All the readings were analysed not only in the cloud, but also by two cardiologists who had access to neither the three-lead nor the initial 12-lead electrocardiogram.
The necklace was shown to produce recordings excellent for detecting and diagnosing atrial fibrillation. The diagnoses made by the standard, multi-lead measurements were also picked up by the necklace with high accuracy, both in the cloud and by the cardiologists.
The research behind the necklace was first showcased at EHRA Essentials 4 You, a scientific platform of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).