High-tech wireless earbuds can detect hidden heart problems while you listen to music or talk on the phone.
The earbuds resemble those used by millions of smartphone users: they work like headphones to play sounds in the ear and have a miniature microphone for speech. But they’re also packed with high-tech sensors that can pick up tiny vibrations generated by the heart as it beats.
These vibrations, which pass through blood vessels, bones and muscles around the ear canal, are not perceptible to the human ear, but can be registered by the sensors (used as much as possible).
The data is sent wirelessly to a microchip in a hand-held device, which analyzes it for clues that may indicate heart disease. The results can then be passed on to the patient’s and doctor’s smartphones.
Tests on the earbuds show they can detect atrial fibrillation, an abnormal heart rhythm. About 1.2 million people in the UK have been diagnosed with it, but thousands more are believed to have it without realizing it, as apart from the odd slight ‘fluttering’ in the chest, there are often no symptoms.
The earbuds are packed with high-tech sensors that can pick up tiny vibrations generated by the heart as it beats — and detect potential defects
In most cases, the heart beats extremely fast — 150 beats per minute (bpm) or more, compared to a normal resting heart rate of 60 to 100 bpm for an adult. Less commonly, the heart rate may drop below 60 beats per minute in some patients.
Because the heart beats irregularly, blood can accumulate and clot in the chambers of the heart.
The risk is that these clots can travel to the blood vessels that supply the brain, leading to a stroke. Atrial fibrillation causes 16,000 strokes a year in England alone.
Treatments include blood-thinning medications to stop clots from forming, as well as cardioversion, in which the heart returns to its normal rhythm with a jolt.
But even diagnosing an abnormal heart rhythm in the first place can be problematic, as it can come and go. A Holter monitor — a bulky box connected to electrodes that track the heart’s electrical activity — can be worn for up to 48 hours, but it’s uncomfortable and provides limited information.
Recently, “wearable” technology such as the Apple Watch has aided in diagnosis. This shines a green light through the skin to measure the amount of blood passing through the wrist, then converts it into a heartbeat.
However, most of these devices only check heart rate every five minutes. In comparison, the earplugs, which are being developed by the American company MindMics Inc., record heartbeat vibrations once per second. The frequency and strength of these vibrations greatly increase or decrease when atrial fibrillation affects the heart.
Tests on the earbuds show they can detect atrial fibrillation, an abnormal heart rhythm – diagnosed by 1.2 million people in the UK
A study by researchers at MindMics and the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, published last December in the journal NPJ Digital Medicine, compared earplugs to an electrocardiogram (ECG).
In an EKG, electrodes are placed on the chest to monitor the heart rhythm. It is the gold standard for checking for atrial fibrillation, but must be performed by a doctor or nurse. When doctors tested the earplugs in 15 patients with atrial fibrillation and 25 healthy volunteers, the earplugs were as accurate as an EKG.
The first earbuds are expected to become available in the US later this year and then in the UK.
Francisco Leyva-Leon, professor of cardiology at Aston University, and consultant cardiologist at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, both in Birmingham, said: ‘It is plausible that these earplugs can pick up atrial fibrillation. But they need full clinical validation and are still a long way from everyday use.’
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