Category: ECG/EKG Applications

Atrial fibrillation(also called AFIB or AF) is a shaking or irregular heartbeat(arrhythmia) that can lead to blood clots, stroke, heart failure, and other heart-related conplications. At least 2.7 million Americans have AFib.

Normally, your heart contracts and relaxes to a regular beat. In atrial fibrillation, the upper chambers of the heart(atria) beat irregularly(fibrillation) rather than efficiently to move blood into the ventricles.

If the clot breaks off, enters the bloodstream and becomes lodged in the arteries leading to the brain, a stroke can result. About 15-20% of stroke patients have this arrhythmia. This risk of blood clots is why patients with this condition take blood thinners.

Although untreated atrail fibrillation doubles the risk of heart-related death and increases the risk of stroke fivefold, many patients are unaware that AFib is a serious condition. 

A free testing app: AFibCheck .

According to statistics, on average, a sudden cardiac death occurs every one minute across the country, 60% of which occur outside the hospital, and 80% are caused by malignant arrhythmia. At present, there are about 20 million patients with arrhymia in my country, but people generally do not understand, pay no attention to, and do not treat them, especially young people who disagree. Is the body sending a signal? Don’t take it lightly, you need 24-hour continuous heart rate and heart rate monitoring.

Because the early symptoms of arrhythmia are not obvious and the onset is short and irregular, the public’s awareness of arrhythmia, a common disease, is seriously low, and the treatment rate and control rate are lower. If symptoms of arrhythmia occur, the patient needs to go to the hospital as soon as possible, and strive to capture the pattern of the arrhythmia with the electrocardiogram at the first time of the attack so that the doctor can diagnose and treat it.

However, because the symptoms of these diseases are characterized by random, sporadic and occasional attacks, and the onset time is uncertain, elusive, and the onset time is not necessarily very long. It is often when the patient has symptoms, when the patient has just arrived at the hospital or is even about to go to the hospital. These symptoms disappeared. Therefore, we need a portable device to monitor our heart rate at all times. It is worth noting that with the development of science and technology, smart wearable devices such as watches and bracelets can take advantage of their comfortable wearing, time-saving, worry-saving, and long-term continuous monitoring, which can help people understand their heart in a timely manner.

For example, the portable ECG recorder/ECG tape, ECG bracelet/watch, etc. in the ECG product solution of Plus1Health. Use medical-grade arrhythmia algorithms, which are accurate, effective, safe and reliable.

Heart is like a pump. The heart contracts and relaxes rhythmically. It bounces blood form the heart to the whole body. When this rhythm is affected, it will turn into a chaotic, which is arrhythmia. Arrhythmia may be caused by problems in the structure of the heart, that is, organic disease, or it may be functional (because some factors make it difficult to beat, such as life pressure, poor rest, etc.).

Because all kinds of arrhythmia are handled differently, we need to figure out what the problem is in our arrhythmia in order to konw how to deal with it effectively. The electrocardiogram monitoring is to record our electrocardiogram through the electrodes on the body surface to analyza the heart rate (beats per minute) and heart rhythm (beating rhythm).

Commonly used detection methods include ECG,Hotre and various professional remote ECG detaction equipment. The electrocardiogram is the most commonly used, cheap and convenient inspection method, which can accurately record the ECG sitution at the moment of inspection. The disadvantage is that the inspection time is short and it is difficult to capture paroxysmal arrhythmias. Hoter can be understood as a 24-hour continunous ECG test. By continuously wearing the tester, it can record the ECG at night and during activities.The disadvantage is that the Hoter machine is too large and there are many electrodes is machine’s surface. It requires repeated trips to the hospital to install and disassemble the machine. Arrhythmia under certain specific causes may also be missed.

Remote ECG detection equipment is an ECG monitoring method that has developed rapidly in recent years. Due to the proper increase of the detection time, the success rate of arrhythmia diagnosis can be increased by 3-9 times. The small test machine can achieve long-term ECG recording form 1 week to 3 months, which will more effectively reduce the missed detection and achieve accurate ECG analysis. At the same time, you can view the real-time ECG status through the mobile phone APP.

For example, Plus1Health‘s remote ECG solution, medical-grade arrhythmia algorithm, can monitor arrhythmia and other problems in real time.

Atrial fibrillation (also called AF or AFib) is a common discorder in which the upper chambers of the heart, or atrial fibrillation, fibrillate. This means their beating is very fast and irregular, so the heart cannot pump blood efficiently to the rest of the body.

AFib is a serious condition that doubles the risk of stroke and, over time, can lead to heart failure.

Download the AFibCheck App, you can easily screen for atrial fibrillation with a mobile phone, easy and convenient !

Atrial fibrillation is a very common clinical arrhythmia, and the overall incidence of the population is about 1%. And the incidence of atrial fibrillation gradually increases with age. Among the 40-50 years old population, the incidence of atrial fibrillation is about 0.5%; and among the elderly over 80 years old, the incidence of atrial fibrillation Up to 8%-10%. According to the calculation of the global population of 6 billion, there are about 60 million patients with atrial fibrillation.

 The typical symptoms of patients with atrial fibrillation are palpitations, and even chest pain and even heart failure due to myocardial ischemia induced by rapid heart rate. However, many patients have asymptomatic atrial fibrillation, especially patients with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation. Intermittent atrial fibrillation did not bring any complaints, but the absence of symptoms does not mean that there is no harm. These patients often have stroke as the first symptom. There are also patients with enlarged heart and cardiac insufficiency at the time of discovery.

Therefore, timely detection of atrial fibrillation and early treatment are of great significance for preventing stroke, preventing heart enlargement and cardiac insufficiency. At home and abroad, more and more attention is paid to atrial fibrillation screening. Several major heart rhythm societies such as AHA, ACC, ESC, and the International Stroke Conference (ISC) often have major research on atrial fibrillation screening appear. In 2017, a consensus document for AF screening was also formed.

There are many screening methods, but each has its own advantages and disadvantages…

In the process of screening for atrial fibrillation, the available methods include blood pressure measurement, pulse palpation, ECG screening, long-term Holter screening, implantable Holter screening, and smartphone screening.

Blood pressure measurement and pulse palpation require certain experience. Blood pressure measurement also needs to be performed in a place with a sphygmomanometer. The convenience is limited, and the sensitivity is not high enough. Electrocardiogram and long-term Holter screening mostly need to be carried out in medical institutions. For patients with a few and irregular episodes of atrial fibrillation, the examination rate is low. The implantable Holter is more expensive and requires an implanted device to only screen for atrial fibrillation. Currently, most patients are unwilling to accept it. At present, smart phones are popular, and almost one person has one. If a smart phone can be used to screen for atrial fibrillation, it will bring great convenience and increase the rate of atrial fibrillation examination. Research on smart phones for atrial fibrillation screening is actively Unfold.

After downloading and installing the heart rate detection software, open the software and there will be a tutorial video inside. After opening it to detect the heart rate, use the flash of the mobile phone camera, use your index finger to hold the camera above the flash, and place your fingers correctly.

The test will be completed in about a minute, and the heart rate index will appear after the test is completed.

The heart rate of atrial fibrillation is generally 350-600 beats every minute, but the atrial rate is fast, and there are generally no obvious symptoms. If this is accompanied by a fast ventricular rate, there will be typical symptoms of palpitations, palpitation, and chest tightness. Fast heart rate means that the ventricular rate is greater than 80 beats every minute at rest, and the ventricular rate is greater than 110 beats every minute after activity. If this value is exceeded at the time of a seizure, more than 80 beats every minute or more than 110 beats every minute, the electrocardiogram must be perfected. If you find that your heart rate is high or low, it is recommended to ask your doctor. Although mobile phone detection may not be as accurate as the hospital’s equipment, it can also serve as a reference for early preventive screening.

Whether the heart rate is normal or not reflects a person’s health status. Most people don’t test their own heart rate from time to time. Now the mobile phone has a heart rate detection software that can detect the heart rate. Here’s how to use it.

A normal heart rate for adults ranges from 60 to 100 beats per minute.

Generally, a lower heart rate at rest implies more efficient heart function and better cardiovascular fitness.

To measure your heart rate, simply check your pulse. Place your index and third fingers on your neck to the side of your windpipe. To check your pulse at your wrist, place two fingers between the bone and the tendon over your radial artery — which is located on the thumb side of your wrist.

When you feel your pulse, count the number of beats in 15 seconds. Multiply this number by four to calculate your beats per minute.

Keep in mind that many factors can influence heart rate, including:

Age

Fitness and activity levels

Being a smoker

Having cardiovascular disease, high cholesterol or diabetes

Air temperature

Body position (standing up or lying down, for example)

Emotions

Body size

Medications

Although there’s a wide range of normal, an unusually high or low heart rate may indicate an underlying problem. Consult your doctor if your heart rate is consistently above 100 beats a minute (tachycardia) or if you’re not a trained athlete and your heart rate is below 60 beats a minute (bradycardia) — especially if you have other signs or symptoms, such as fainting, dizziness or shortness of breath.

When a person has heart palpitations, they may notice that their heartbeat does not feel right. Often, heart palpitations are not serious, but they can indicate a condition that needs medical attention.

People are not usually aware of their heartbeat, but sometimes, it comes to their notice. This may be because their heart is pounding too hard, too fast, too slow, or irregularly.

Many factors can trigger heart palpitations. Some causes include physical or mental stress,anxiety, dehydration, and lack up sleep.

However, they can also indicate an underlying heart problem.

Atrial fibrillation is almost a heart disease that many elderly people are prone to suffer from. When this type of disease occurs, the body will feel very obvious symptoms of discomfort. Therefore, in addition to treatment, care in daily life is also very important. In the diet, you should also choose to eat as many vegetables and fruits as possible, and reduce the intake of salt, which will help stabilize the disease.

With the increasing number of patients with high blood pressure and coronary heart disease, the number of patients with atrial fibrillation is also on the rise. Symptoms of atrial fibrillation are mainly manifested in rapid and irregular heartbeat, chest tightness, dizziness, fatigue and difficulty breathing. Once a patient with atrial fibrillation occurs at home, active treatment should be carried out first. At present, drug therapy is still an important method for the control of atrial fibrillation.

Atrial fibrillation also pays attention to certain methods in home care. Patients with atrial fibrillation should often observe changes in heart rate, blood pressure and heart rhythm. During the period of taking the medicine, it is necessary to go to the hospital to review the electrocardiogram regularly, pay close attention to the adverse reactions of the patient, and deal with the abnormality as soon as possible. Usually, you can also use the ECG stickers of Plus1Health for more monitoring, which can quickly check the ECG and give it to the doctor for analysis. During an acute attack, patients with atrial fibrillation should absolutely be able to rest in bed.

In addition, special attention should be paid to the diet. Eat more foods rich in protein and vitamins. Lean meat, fish and shrimp, eggs and milk are all good choices. You should also eat more fresh vegetables and fruits. Be sure to supervise the patient not to smoke, drink less alcohol, drink less strong tea and coffee, not eat spicy and irritating food, and reduce the intake of sodium salt every day. The mood of patients with atrial fibrillation is generally more annoyed, and the mood is often depressed, which requires the nurse to appease the patient’s mood, eliminate the patient’s fear and ideological concerns in time, and keep the patient in a comfortable and calm mood at all times to enhance his Confidence in the treatment of atrial fibrillation, to avoid the patient’s long-term mental stress.

For patients with atrial fibrillation, scientific and effective home care can even exceed the good effect of drug treatment. If the nurses maintain a meticulous and amiable attitude, the nursing effect can be increased to a greater extent. In this soft and friendly atmosphere, patients can stretch their hearts, take medicines on time, have a reasonable diet, and use the patient’s own good mood to enhance their resistance to the greatest extent, and promote the patient’s early recovery.

Atrial fibrillation(short for atrial fibrillation) is the most common arrhythmia. There are as many as 10 million patients with atrial fibrillation in China, and with the increase of age, the prevalence of atrial fibrillation increases sharply10%.

Methods of atrial fibrillation screening include blood pressure measurement, pulse palpation, electrocardiogram screening, long-range holter screening, implantable holter screening and smartphones.

Through pulse palpation, automatic blood pressure measurement, etc., although such methods are simple and easy to implement, the probability of missed diagnosis and misdiagnosis is high.

Most electrocardiograms need to be performed in medical institutions, and can only record the heart rate for about 10 seconds. For patients with few and irregular atrial fibrillation attacks, the inspection rate is low.

The implantable holter is more expensive and requires implanted equipment, only to screen for atrial fibrillation, and most patients are currently unwilling to accept it.

With the current popularity of smartphones, almost everyone has one. Single-lead ECG recordings through smartphones can track heart rhythms for a longer period of time, which is expected to further improve the detection rate of atrial fibrillation.

For patients with recessive screening by ordinary ECG, the application of long-range holter and implantable holter should be increased to make up for the short recording time of ordinary ECG and reduce the missed diagnosis rate of asymptomatic atrial fibrillation.

Plus1Health has an ECG monitoring applet and a supporting ECG monitoring solution, and can also realize the remote ECG monitoring function, which can perform ECG monitoring at home and issue real-time ECG reports.

What are the main hazards of arrhythmia? Experts said that there are the following hazards that patients need to pay attention to:

First, serious arrhythmia can cause bradycardia, or arrhythmia syndromes such as tachycardia.

Second, when arrhythmia occurs, the changes in the systolic procedures of the atrium and the ventricle will cause abnormal blood circulation in the patient’s body, and the patient’s cardiac output will decrease by about 30%, which will cause the patient to experience some symptoms such as conscientiousness, chest tightness, and weakness.

Third, arrhythmia can lead to sudden death, among which ventricular tachycardia, cardiac too slow, the incidence of sudden death caused by ventricular fibrillation and conduction block is higher.

You must know that arrhythmia is very common in daily life. About 540,000 people die of sudden cardiac death in my country every year. Nearly 90% of sudden deaths are caused by arrhythmia, but people’s awareness of their harm is far from enough. It can be seen that, understanding cardiac arrhythmia is important.

The common uncomfortable symptoms of arrhythmia are episodic palpitations and palpitation. Patients will feel a sudden blockage in their throat and chest tightness. For severe patients, they will sometimes be accompanied by symptoms of dizziness, amaurosis, and sometimes aphasia. , hemiplegia and other cerebral infarction. Experts tell us that mild arrhythmia generally does not have much impact, but the onset time is long, and patients experience blackening, dizziness, fatigue, nausea and vomiting, and even sudden fainting and shock in some patients. At this time, you should go to the hospital in time, and you cann’t miss the best time for treatment.

For the treatment of arrhythmia, it is best to follow the principle of early treatment if there is a disease, and prevention if there is no disease. When you occasionally feel a little uncomfortable in your heart, you can first monitor it with equipment. We have an ECG record, the instrument can do this monitoring. At the same time, our patients should also live a regular life, have a reasonable diet, ensure adequate sleep, pay attention to the combination of work and rest, and never ignore their illness.

Atrial fibrillation is one of the most common and serious arrhythmias in clinical practice. With the intensification of social development and population aging in my country, the incidence of atrial fibrillation has gradually increased, and it has shown a younger trend. So, which groups of people are prone to atrial fibrillation?

1.The population of hypertensive patients

Epidemiological studies have shown that hypertension is the most important risk factor in patients with atrial fibrillation. Patients with long-term hypertension and poor blood pressure control have a significantly increased risk of atrial fibrillation, which may be related to increased left atrial pressure, atrial fibrosis, and inflammatory cell infiltration. Regarding the choice of different types of antihypertensive drugs, angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers may be beneficial in reducing the incidence of atrial fibrillation.

2.The population of diabetic patients

Diabetes is a disease that often coexists with atrial fibrillation. It can cause atrial fibrosis, slow electrical conduction, and promote atrial remodeling, but existing studies have shown that aggressive blood sugar control does not affect the incidence of new-onset atrial fibrillation. In terms of drug choice, metformin appears to reduce the risk of atrial fibrillation and stroke in diabetic patients.

3.People who are overweight or obese

Being overweight or obese leads to significant atrial remodeling and is a risk factor for AF episodes and recurrence after catheter ablation. For every 1 increase in BMI, the incidence of atrial fibrillation increased by 3% to 7%, and the recurrence rate of catheter ablation increased by 3.1%. Obesity is also associated with higher radiation doses and complication rates during catheter ablation. Several recent studies have shown that weight control can reduce the burden of atrial fibrillation. For obese patients with atrial fibrillation, if the body weight can be reduced by more than 10%, and the weight is stable, the survival rate without atrial arrhythmia events can be increased by 6 times. Therefore, aggressive weight management is beneficial for patients with AF.

4.sleep apnea patient population

In the general population aged 30 to 60, about 24% of men and 9% of women have sleep apnea. The proportion of patients with atrial fibrillation complicated by sleep apnea is as high as 32% to 39%. Epidemiological statistics show that the incidence and progression of atrial fibrillation are positively correlated with the severity of sleep apnea. The possible mechanisms that make patients with sleep apnea more prone to atrial fibrillation include hypoxemia, autonomic dysfunction, and hypercapnia. Compared with patients with normal atrial fibrillation, patients with sleep apnea had more trigger foci outside the pulmonary veins and had a higher recurrence rate after catheter ablation.

5.long-term alcohol intake

Alcohol intake is a risk factor for atrial fibrillation, thromboembolic events, and recurrence after catheter ablation. The more frequent the drinking, the higher the corresponding risk of developing the disease. Alcohol toxicity can lead to myocardial fibrosis, which results in scarring of the left atrium and triggering foci outside the pulmonary veins. Limiting alcohol consumption should be an important part of the management of patients with atrial fibrillation.

6.People who exercise too little or too much

Both too little and too much exercise increases the risk of atrial fibrillation. The mechanism may be related to inflammation, fibrosis and so on. A sedentary lifestyle increases the incidence of atrial fibrillation fivefold. Increasing activity intensity in such patients may reduce their risk. One study showed that people with atrial fibrillation reduced their atrial fibrillation burden by 41% after just 12 weeks of moderate-intensity exercise. Another study in endurance athletes showed that prolonged high-intensity endurance exercise was associated with a 5-fold increase in the incidence of atrial fibrillation. Such patients usually have paroxysmal atrial fibrillation with obvious symptoms and structural changes such as cardiac enlargement and ventricular hypertrophy. Therefore, advocating moderate exercise may be beneficial for the prevention and treatment of atrial fibrillation.

Plus1Health has an ECG patch, which is equipped with the “TiNew” applet, which can screen for atrial fibrillation. There is also a free app for measuring atrial fibrillation— “AFibCheck”, which can be downloaded and used by searching in the mobile app store, and the operation is simple and convenient.