Smartwatches Could Detect Congestive Heart Failure

Diagnosing congestive heart failure (CHF) typically requires expensive and time-consuming imaging techniques like echocardiography, also known as cardiac ultrasound. Previously, detecting CHF by analyzing just the intervals between successive heartbeats – known as inter-beat or RR intervals – was either very difficult or practically impossible for patients with regular sinus rhythm. On the other hand, atrial fibrillation is much easier to detect and can be identified using many consumer-grade devices currently on the market. Now, a new method developed by a team of physicists has made detecting CHF more feasible and precise than ever before. This groundbreaking approach, a result of a collaboration between cardiologists and computational physicists, builds on the team's prior successes, such as predicting the risk of sudden cardiac death.

This significant advancement in heart disease diagnosis was made by physicists at Tampere University (Tampere, Finland). Their new study shows that CHF can now be accurately identified by analyzing inter-beat intervals, a measurement that can be obtained not only from professional equipment but also from consumer-grade devices like smartwatches and heart rate monitors. The method relies on advanced time-series analysis, which examines the dependencies between inter-beat intervals at various time scales, along with other complex characteristics associated with different heart conditions. The team analyzed multiple international databases that contained long-term electrocardiographic (ECG) recordings from both healthy individuals and patients with heart disease.

The study focused on distinguishing CHF patients from healthy individuals and those with atrial fibrillation. The new approach was able to detect CHF with an impressive 90% accuracy, proving its reliability and effectiveness as a diagnostic tool. This method provides a much simpler and more cost-effective alternative for screening CHF, utilizing accessible devices such as consumer-grade heart rate monitors and smartwatches. The potential for earlier diagnosis of heart diseases could lead to improved patient treatment and outcomes, making this method a promising tool for widespread clinical use.

“Our findings pave the way for the early detection of congestive heart failure using readily available equipment, eliminating the need for complex diagnostic procedures,” said Professor of Cardiology Jussi Hernesniemi, who participated in the study published in Heart Rhythm O2.