• January 5, 2017
• Information Technology
• Web Desk

KARACHI – Students of Dr Panjwani Centre for Molecular Medicine and Drug Research (PCMD), University of Karachi, have developed a prototype model of “heart attack detection device” keeping in view the importance of shifting the heart patients to the hospital without any delay.

The patients with cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) require urgent medical treatment when they experience a severe or mild heart attack.

Prof Dr Muhammad Iqbal Choudhary, director of the International Centre for Chemical and Biological Sciences (ICCBS), University of Karachi, said while delivering a lecture at the ICCBS that the research team of Dr Shabana Usman Simjee had developed this device.

The research team consists of Saba Majeed, Mehwish Subhan, Mehwish Tanveer, Aisha Aziz, Saad Ahmed Shaikh, Maha Shahid, Maryam Askani and Kanwal Iftikhar.

Prof Iqbal Choudhary said that according to the WHO data published in May 2014 deaths due to cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) in Pakistan accounted for 9.87 per cent of the total deaths. The WHO estimates that the age adjusted death rate is 110.65 per 100,000 of population, he said. “The patients with CVDs require urgent medical treatment when they experience a severe or mild heart attack. The electrocardiogram (ECG) is a conventional technique used to detect heart attack or CVDs,” he said.

For this procedure, a patient needs to reach the hospital urgently. The delay in the start of the treatment can aggravate the condition of the patient who requires urgent medical treatment.

This leads to the need for development of a quick and urgent detecting system, which can detect heart attack, he added.

This proposed system is a smart kit, which consists of a circuit that will continuously monitor heart rate of the user, he said, adding that when the heart rate of the user would enter a danger zone, the nearby smart phone would get alarmed and the application installed in the smart phone would notify the family of the user as well as the ambulance service.

ECG circuit unit is also a part of this patient monitoring kit, he said.