Contact Free Technology to Identify Atrial Fibrillation

Background

Atrial Fibrillation (AF) episodes may be asymptomatic but important clinically. Longer rhythm follow-up increase the rates of AF detection.

The EarlySense (ES) system has been validated for measuring movement, heart rate, and respiration, using a contact-free under-the-mattress sensor that does not require any subject compliance. Thus, theoretically this system is attractive for detecting AF episodes during sleep.

Objective

To establish the usefulness of the ES system in detecting AF

Methods

Consecutive patients with either atrial flutter (AFL) or persistent AF who were referred for cardioversion (CV) were recruited. Patients were monitored simultaneously by 12 lead ECG (Prucka) and the ES sensor for 15 minutes before and after CV.

Inter-Beat-Intervals (IBI) were extracted from both systems and compared as a function of time. The IBI mean and standard deviation (SD) were calculated as indicators of heart rate (HR) distribution before and after CV (during AF but not AFL we expect high SD).

Results

A total of 16 patients (13 AF and 3 AFL), 5 females (31%), age (67±12) were analyzed. The IBI, extracted by both systems, did not differ significantly in their means or SD either before (p=0.495) or after CV (p=0.218). All patients had a significant increase in IBI (decrease in HR) after CV (range changed from 514-1082 ms to 647-1495 ms, p<0.05). All AF but not AFL patients had also a significant decrease in SD (p~0.05) post CV.

Conclusion

Our findings suggest that this technology has the potential to identify AF, and AFL. As this technology is contact free – it might be used (with further research) for mass population screening.