Here is a unique and simple means to detect cardiovascular disease. Scientists from the Sahlgrenska Academy have now crafted a customized pulse oximeter that can be attached to the finger and used to predict changes in heart and vessel function while sleeping. This technique can probably recognize patients at increased risk of heart disease and also analyze the efficacy of their treatment.
The study followed a total of 148 people among whom more than 80 percent were picked up by this simple and risk-free measurement technique. Then a modified version of the pulse oximeter was employed for detecting various sleep disorders during the night, such as apnoea. The introduced method is supposedly based on the measurement of five components of the signal from the finger. These five components may be pulse wave attenuation, pulse rate acceleration, pulse propagation time, respiration-related pulse oscillation and oxygen desaturation.
“We then weigh up these components in a model to assess how great a risk the patient runs of cardiovascular disease. We believe that the patient’s values reflect the risk at least as well as the individual’s risk factors ‘on paper,” elucidated Ludger Grote, associate professor at the Center for Sleep and Vigilance Disorders at the Sahlgrenska Academy and senior consultant at Sahlgrenska University Hospital.
This method of classifying people with heart disease risk is quicker and easier. It can be seemingly employed to assess the effects of treatment for cardiovascular disease, like how weight loss and exercise can help avoid complications.
The study was published in the journal Chest.