Almost 500,000 Americans die each year from cardiac arrest, when the heart suddenly stops beating.
Almost 500,000 Americans die each year from cardiac arrest, when the heart suddenly stops beating.
People experiencing cardiac arrest will suddenly become unresponsive and either stop breathing or gasp for air, a sign known as agonal breathing. Immediate CPR can double or triple someone’s chance of survival, but that requires a bystander to be present.
Cardiac arrests often occur outside of the hospital and in the privacy of someone’s home. Recent research suggests that one of the most common locations for an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is in a patient’s bedroom, where no one is likely around or awake to respond and provide care.
Researchers at the University of Washington have developed a new tool to monitor people for cardiac arrest while they’re asleep without touching them. A new skill for a smart speaker — like Google Home and Amazon Alexa — or smartphone lets the device detect the gasping sound of agonal breathing and call for help. On average, the proof-of-concept tool, which was developed using real agonal breathing instances captured from 911 calls, detected agonal breathing events 97% of the time from up to 20 feet (or 6 meters) away. The findings are published June 19 in the Nature journal npj Digital Medicine.
Read more at University of Washington
Image: The researchers envision a contactless system that works by continuously and passively monitoring the bedroom for an agonal breathing event. If it detects agonal breathing, it can call for help. (Credit: Sarah McQuate/University of Washington)
