Personal Telemonitoring: Perspectives of Development in Arhythmology and Cardiology
Sudden cardiac death (SCD) persists as one of challenging problems in cardiology and cardiac surgery, only in Russia costing more than 350,000 deaths annually. Arrhythmias and ischemic heart disease (IHD) prevail as SCD immediate direct mechanisms. Unfortunately, timely diagnostics of heart diseases is far below the satisfactory level. On the other hand, the number of patients to be followed up is increasing faster than the healthcare capacity. To close the gap, new approaches to diagnostics and prophylaxis of cardiovascular diseases are needed, involving innovative medical technologies. Implantable and external devices for heart arrhythmia and CAD early diagnostics are extensively used in modern cardiologic praxis. Impetuous development of this technique in combination with information and telecommunication technologies during last decade led to origination of completely new medical service based on mobile remote monitoring of patients. Relying on the experience in remote patient monitoring with implantable devices for recording heart electrical activity, Russian Scientific Society of Arrhythmologists and the «Engineering Centre of the National Nuclear Research University MEPhI» are developing a universal implantable ECG Monitor, - the device that will be able to detect both the arrhythmias and the pathological changes of the heart electrical excitation during repolarisation. Technical and functional specific features of the device are combination of small size and remote monitoring option, the accelerometer to track the patient physical activity, and reliable detection of ST-segment shift on ECG.