A new study suggests that a smart-technology wearable wristband may be able to automatically detect cardiac arrest, potentially improving survival odds when cardiac arrest occurs outside of a hospital. The research, published today in Circulation: Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Heart Association, analyzed data from 49 adults in the Netherlands who had abnormal heart rhythms and underwent a medical procedure in which a life-threatening heart rhythm was briefly induced.
The DETECT‑1b study focused on patients who experienced pulseless ventricular tachycardia (pVT) or ventricular fibrillation (VF) during treatment for irregular heart rhythms. The algorithm-based wristband, which uses a light-based technique (photoplethysmography) to measure changes in blood flow, detected cardiac arrest in 92% of cases, including 100% of ventricular fibrillation and 90% of pulseless ventricular tachycardia events.
“Our findings are important because many out-of-hospital cardiac arrests are unwitnessed,” said study senior author Judith Bonnes, M.D., Ph.D., a cardiologist at the Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen, Netherlands. “With the device automatically notifying emergency services or nearby trained responders, help could arrive sooner, which may significantly improve survival chances.”
The research recorded 59 shockable cardiac arrest events, with only nine false positives during 125 hours of recording. In per-patient analysis, accuracy for detecting irregular rhythms was 92%. This wrist-based photoplethysmography algorithm differs from previous approaches because it allows continuous and unobtrusive monitoring in daily life, according to lead study author Roos Edgar, M.Sc., a technical physician at Radboud University Medical Center.
“This is the first study to externally validate such an algorithm using patient data, which is an important step toward developing a reliable detection system for real-world use,” Edgar said. The algorithm could eventually alert nearby lay rescuers or emergency services when cardiac arrest is detected. “The goal is to connect the wristband to emergency dispatch centers and volunteer responder networks in the Netherlands so that nearby rescuers and ambulance services can be alerted immediately,” Bonnes added.
Cameron Dezfulian, M.D., FAHA, chair of the American Heart Association’s Resuscitation Science Symposium Program Committee, who was not involved in the study, noted the low frequency of false positives as impressive. “This study parallels findings from a study in Canada and one in the U.S. that shows this technology has great potential,” Dezfulian said. However, he cautioned that pulseless electrical activity, the most common presenting rhythm in cardiac arrest, accounts for a small portion of validation data for such sensors, indicating a need for further research.
The study was conducted in a controlled clinical setting, which is a limitation. The system’s effectiveness in real-world conditions still needs evaluation. The DETECT-1b study was part of the broader DETECT project, a collaboration of several hospitals and a company in the Netherlands developing a smart wristband for automated cardiac arrest detection and emergency alerting. Participants had a median age of 66 years, and 84% were men. The research assessed more than 125 hours of algorithm data.
