Engineers at the University of Mississippi have created a wearable gadget capable of detecting heart attacks instantly. This may represent a significant advancement in medicine, as the engineers disclose that the wearable gadget can detect heart attacks more swiftly and precisely than conventional techniques. The research is published in Intelligent Systems, Blockchain, and Communication Technologies.

The innovative technology, created in the laboratory of electrical and computer engineering assistant professor Kasem Khalil, has the potential to enhance methods for detecting heart attacks while maintaining accuracy.

Khalil and his group employed artificial intelligence and advanced mathematics to create a chip capable of analyzing electrocardiograms, or ECGs—charts of the heart's electrical signals—and identifying a heart attack instantly. The developed technology is lightweight and energy-efficient enough to be integrated into wearable devices, achieving an accuracy of 92.4%—exceeding that of many existing methods.

Existing techniques for detecting heart attacks frequently require occurrence within a healthcare setting. A patient experiencing chest discomfort or who thinks they might be having a heart attack must initially undergo an electrocardiogram or blood analysis to determine their condition. The researchers indicated that all of this requires time which a patient may lack. If a device like a watch or phone can reduce diagnosis time, patients may receive quicker treatment.

"When a patient is having a heart attack, the sooner you can treat them, the less likely they are to have permanent damage," Khalil said. "There's a huge time-sensitive element to heart attacks."

As Khalil and his team progress with the technology, he mentioned that he envisions additional health care uses for these devices.

"We want to be able to predict or identify many problems using technology like this," he said, "whether that's heart attacks or seizures or dementia. The detection of a disease or condition depends on the disease itself, but we're working to find faster, more efficient ways of doing that."