(Reuters) Amy Pollock - A team of textile and medical experts at the Israeli company HealthWatch created a shirt which monitors heart activity and sends alerts of abnormalities directly to patients and their doctors on their mobile phones. HealthWatch Vice President Dov Rubin explains, "It's just a textile t-shirt that is sensing in this case the electrocardiogram's signals of the heart, able to detect any sort of disease states that the heart and the person find themselves in, and transmit that data immediately via bluetooth, via the smartphone and directly to the cardiologist, saving very valuable time to get treatment." The shirts, which incorporate a twelve-lead electrocardiogram, are machine washable and suitable for everyday wear. Hadassah University Hospital's Professor Chaim Lotan noted that other sensors have only one lead, "so you can miss a lot of problems if you don't get as good coverage as from a twelve-lead ECG." HealthWatch CEO Uri Amir added, "If you are monitored all of the time...this is the revolution because at the same time someone is watching your health." Developers think the design could be adapted for high-risk pregnant women too. Commercial production is due early this year.
2015-01-09 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive