ISRAEL-ECG SHIRT ECG shirt warns wearer of heart problems via smartphone

Record ID: 398900

  • Title: ISRAEL-ECG SHIRT ECG shirt warns wearer of heart problems via smartphone
  • Date: 5th January 2015
  • Summary: KFAR SABA, ISRAEL (RECENT) (REUTERS) VARIOUS VIEWS OF MACHINE SEWING SHIRTS MEN LOOKING AT HEALTHWATCH WEARABLE SHIRT WITH SENSORS HEALTHWATCH SHIRT MAN LOOKING AT SHIRT SENSORS ON SHIRT MAN PUTTING ON HEALTHWATCH'S WEARABLE SHIRT VIEW OF SENSORS ON SHIRT MAN EXPLAINING HOW SIGNAL IS TRANSMITTED THROUGH A SMARTPHONE VIEW OF SMARTPHONE MONITOR SHOWING ELECTROCARDIOGRAM WIDE
  • Embargoed: 20th January 2015 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Israel
  • Country: Israel
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVACGSPZ6AYLWJOWPL87E0K2GYVT
  • Story Text: An Israeli team of textile and medical experts have collaborated to create a shirt that monitors patients' heart activity, transmitting data via a smartphone to their doctors.
    The stretchy shirt, made by Israeli company HealthWatch, has sensors woven into the fabric that pick up electrocardiogram signals from the wearer before transmitting them to a cloud-based database. The patient and their cardiologist is alerted of any abnormalities immediately, speeding up diagnosis and treatment time.
    "Healthwatch's garment is very unique in the sense that 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 they 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," HealthWatch's Vice- President Dov Rubin told Reuters.
    HealthWatch says the shirt, which incorporates a comprehensive twelve-lead electrocardiogram (ECG) into the fabric, could save lives by speeding up detection of abnormalities in heart activity.
    The wearable and washable shirt, approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) includes a woven in pocket to hold a transmitter which generates data in real-time in events such as arrhythmia, ischemia, or if patients fall down.
    It is capable of handling large sets of data and storing individuals' personal health information, so it is capable of being integrated into any healthcare system, Rubin told Reuters.
    HealthWatch's chief executive says the groundbreaking garment allows patients to continue normal lives.
    "The person is continuing his way of life, he doesn't change the way of life and this is a revolution so basically if you are monitored all of the time and you go to work and you go to do sport, you are with your family and so on and no obstacle, no obstruction and so on. This is the revolution because at the same time someone is watching your health," Uri Amir said.
    Amir says they are eager to expand their target market and have already manufactured a prototype wearable pregnancy shirt to monitor the heartbeat of a foetus and its mother-to-be.
    "We're going to the direction of foetal monitoring. Foetal monitoring especially for high risk women is something that we will be able to monitor the foetus and the mother and the uterine contraction so this will give the complete monitoring to a pregnant woman which is in high risk situation," said Amir.
    Director of the Heart Institute at Hadassah University Hospital, Professor Chaim Lotan, said the 12-lead ECG is what distinguishes HealthWatch's shirt from existing devices that consist of sensors that are capable of only monitoring one's heartbeat.
    "If you have a problem which is in one part of the heart you cannot see it if you have only one lead like the other sensors so you can miss a lot of problems if you don't get as good coverage as from a twelve lead ECG," Lotan said from his office in Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem.
    He was optimistic about future applications of the shirt.
    "I think with a wearable shirt in the future you can get not only the ECG but other data like saturation, like some kinds of sensor measuring and accessing the movement of chest in patients with heart failure, if they have rapid breathing if they are deteriorating, you can get also a GPS for quick location".
    The machine-washable shirts, manufactured in the central Israeli city of Kfar Saba, come in a range of sizes and colours. Rubin says the company hopes to start commercial production of the shirt in the first half of 2015.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register