A smart-technology wearable wristband may be able to automatically detect cardiac arrest, potentially leading to faster medical assistance and improved survival odds when cardiac arrest occurs outside of a hospital, according to research published in Circulation: Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Heart Association.
The DETECT‑1b study analyzed data from 49 adults in the Netherlands with abnormal heart rhythms who underwent a medical procedure in which a life-threatening heart rhythm was briefly induced. The algorithm-based wristband detected cardiac arrest 92% of the time, including 100% of ventricular fibrillation cases and 90% of pulseless ventricular tachycardia cases.
“Our findings are important because many out-of-hospital cardiac arrests are unwitnessed. A smart technology wristband capable of automatically detecting cardiac arrest and triggering an alert could function as a digital witness,” said study senior author Judith Bonnes, M.D., Ph.D., a cardiologist at Radboud University Medical Center. “With the device automatically notifying emergency services or nearby trained responders, help could arrive sooner, which may significantly improve survival chances.”
The device uses a light-based technique (photoplethysmography algorithm) to measure changes in blood flow in the wrist. Unlike previous approaches, this allows continuous and unobtrusive monitoring in daily life, said lead study author Roos Edgar, M.Sc., a technical physician at Radboud University Medical Center. “This is the first study to externally validate such an algorithm using patient data, which is an important step toward developing a reliable detection system for real-world use,” she said.
In a future application, the algorithm could alert nearby lay rescuers, emergency services, or both. “The goal is to connect the wristband to emergency dispatch centers and volunteer responder networks in the Netherlands so that nearby rescuers and ambulance services can be alerted immediately when cardiac arrest is detected,” Bonnes said.
Even though this is a small study, the results are exciting, said Cameron Dezfulian, M.D., FAHA, chair of the American Heart Association’s Resuscitation Science Symposium Program Committee, who was not involved in the study. “What is more impressive than the ability of this technology to detect cardiac arrest is the fairly low frequency of false positives it detected,” he said. “This study parallels findings from a study in Canada and one in the U.S. that shows this technology has great potential.”
The research was conducted in a controlled clinical setting, which is a limitation. The system’s effectiveness and reliability in real-world conditions still need to be evaluated in future studies. Pulseless electrical activity, which is the most common presenting rhythm in cardiac arrest, accounts for a small number of validation data for such wearable sensors, Dezfulian noted, adding, “Further research will be important.”
The DETECT-1b study was conducted at multiple institutions in the Netherlands, collecting data on 49 adults wearing the smart wristband during ventricular tachycardia ablation or subcutaneous implantable cardioverter defibrillator implantation. Participants had a median age of 66 years, and 84% were men. Researchers assessed more than 125 hours of the algorithm’s data for cardiac arrest alerts. The research is part of the broader DETECT project, a collaboration of several hospitals and a company in the Netherlands developing a smart wristband for automated detection of cardiac arrest and alerting emergency services.
For more information on cardiac arrest, visit the American Heart Association’s page on What is Cardiac Arrest?.
