Blog: A new day in heart health
Text: Juuso Blomster
The average American spends over 5 hours on a smartphone every day. Precise estimates vary per country and study, but the conclusion remains: we spend a big chunk of our lives on our phones. It’s not just a device that we use to connect with people. It has become a place where we live our lives. Could it become the device we use to listen to our heart? A device that can help us understand our daily well-being and prompt us to detect possible signs of illness?
“According to estimates, up to 12 million people will suffer from atrial fibrillation in the US by 2050.”
When I talk about mobile-based heart screening tools as a cardiologist, it first takes some convincing. How could a mobile phone be able to detect your heart? The answer lies in the sensitive microelectromechanical sensors found in your smartphone. Researchers in the University of Turku, Finland, got curious whether these sensors could be utilized in measuring heart motion, and perhaps aid in detecting heart diseases like atrial fibrillation.
And yes. Yes they could. And the accuracy was astonishing.
Today, we call it CardioSignal. Several scientific publications, clinical studies and medical device certificates later, we have developed an application accessible to the wider audience that is accurate and reliable enough to serve physicians, while easy and accessible enough to empower consumers.
Even great ideas are dependent on the right timing. Heart diseases are the number one killer in the world, and the numbers are only rising. According to estimates, up to 12 million people will suffer from atrial fibrillation in the US by 2050 and 17.9 million people in Europe by 2060 (1).
Luckily, the opportunities to deliver healthcare digitally are expanding rapidly. The progress is especially fast in cardiology. With the increasing number of people with smartphones globally, now over 3.8 billion and counting, the required technology is basically at the hands of half the globe’s population.
“Researchers in the University of Turku, Finland, got curious whether smartphone sensors could be utilized in measuring heart motion.”
People who are at risk of developing atrial fibrillation, can be encouraged to use at-home monitoring solutions to detect the signs as early as possible. Naturally, the healthcare system can’t at the moment screen everyone for possible signs of atrial fibrillation, but if we could pinpoint the individuals with technology, it would be a big step forward in shifting the focus from treating complications to preventing them.
I want to circle back to that 5 hours I started with. It takes only one minute to measure your heart with CardioSignal. One minute out of 5 hours and it can make all the difference.
With regular measurements, you maximize your possibility to detect atrial fibrillation and learn more about your heart health. This is important even if you are feeling well, as atrial fibrillation can dangerously often be present without perceivable symptoms.
I want to encourage you to form a small habit to your heart’s benefit: Start tracking your pulse on a regular basis. You can even start with checking it by hand. Today. And if you like, there is CardioSignal to do it for you. Give yourself this one minute of stillness to protect a lifetime of moments.
Juuso Blomster, CEO, cardiologist
1 Lippi G, Sanchis-Gomar F, Cervellin G. Global epidemiology of atrial fibrillation: An increasing epidemic and public health challenge. Int J Stroke. 2021 Feb;16(2):217-221. doi: 10.1177/1747493019897870. Epub 2020 Jan 19. Erratum in: Int J Stroke. 2020 Jan 28;:1747493020905964. PMID: 31955707.
