Smallest cardiac monitor built at IIT Mumbai

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Mumbai has has unveiled the world’s smallest wearable cardiac monitor.

Just the size of a candy, the silicon locket has been developed by Professor Rakesh Lal of the School of Bioscience and Bio-engineering, and Professor S Mukherji. The project has been funded by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and is spearheaded by Professor Dinesh Sharma. The silicon locket is now ready at the Microelectronics Department of IIT Mumbai and is awaiting a suitable manufacturer.

The silicon locket houses a small computer which can store a week's electrocardiogram (ECG) data. The basic device is like plug-and-play. Explaining the working of the device, a report said that algorithms are fed into the locket's system, enabling it to distinguish between jerks from running, from working out, or climbing stairs, or irrythmic heart beats. The device is worn with five electrodes on the chest. A sensor in the locket records the heart's electrical activity or ECG. If it detects abnormalities, it can automatically transmit the last few seconds of ECG data to a central server using a mobile phone interface.

A patient who wears the device can press a locket button to mark that data so that a doctor can later scrutinize marked segments, and check the heart's activity before the irregularity. The device can be connected to a mobile phone and can be programmed to send short messages containing marked data to a doctor. Software in the locket forwards the data to the mobile, which sends the messages. As of now, there isn't anything quite as
small on the market.