Mönckeberg's Disease With Calcified Lower Limb Ischemia in Saudi Arabia: A Rare Case Report and Literature Review
I Tried A $130 Health Gadget That Beats The Apple Watch In A Big Way
KardiaMobile 6-Lead
MSRP $130.00
"If you want to get serious about ECG readings, the KardiaMobile 6-Lead is one of the best gadgets out there."
Pros
Cons
Have you seen TV ads for the AliveCor KardiaMobile 6-Lead Personal EKG Monitor? These commercials feature someone asking folks on the street whether their heart is healthy. Interestingly, most people don't have a clue. This is where the tiny KardiaMobile device comes in. It works with your smartphone and promises a real-time heart health assessment.
Does it work? That's what I wanted to find out, so I purchased one. Here's what I learned.
Why I bought an EKG monitor for myselfI purchased the KardiaMobile a few months after my primary care provider performed a traditional EKG test on me and noticed a problem. This information led to me having a heart catheterization, which led to a stent being placed into one of my arteries. The stent opened up a blocked artery outside my heart.
As a long-time Apple Watch user, I have always understood the importance of its electrocardiogram app. The app — which you can find on the current Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2, as well as a few older models — is designed to detect atrial fibrillation (AFib), an irregular heart rhythm. When that happens, you should make your way to a hospital stat because something probably isn't right with your heart — although Apple makes no claims you might be having a heart attack.
My Apple Watch never detected an irregular heart rhythm, but an EKG at the hospital did. The reason, no doubt, is because of the number of leads. The watch offers one lead, while a medical-grade EKG uses up to 12 leads. The more leads, the more comprehensive the view of your heart's electrical activity you'll receive.
An Apple Watch can only measure heart rate and rhythm. This is why I purchased the KardiaMobile, which is considered a medical-grade EKG and includes six leads.
What is the KardiaMobile 6-Lead?The KardiaMobile 6-Lead is the only six-lead personal EKG that has been FDA-approved. Previous KardiaMobile products, including the KardiaMobile Card and KardiaMobile, are older devices that remain on the market.
Both are slightly cheaper than the KardiaMobile 6-Lead but only offer a single lead. Today, most mainstream smartwatches include single-lead EKG technology, which makes other KardiaMobile products no longer necessary, assuming you have one of those watches.
The KardiaMobile 6L requires no wires, patches, or gels and is
It's important to note that the KardiaMobile 6L device has not been tested or recommended for use with pacemakers or ICDs.
What's it like to use the KardiaMobile 6-LeadThe KardiaMobile 6L connects to your smartphone like any other Bluetooth accessory. In this case, I linked it to my iPhone 15 Pro Max using the official Kardia app. Once the device is set up, you can test your heart using one lead or six. Taking a six-lead measurement takes no longer than the one-lead option, so choosing the latter doesn't make any sense unless you don't currently have access to the bare skin of your left leg.
Using the six-lead requires putting your fingers or thumbs on the two electrodes on the top of the device and the skin from your leg on the device's bottom electrode. When you perform a one-lead test, you only need to put your thumbs on the top two electrodes.
The KardiaMobile 6L can record six EKG leads, including I, II, III, aVL, aVR, and aVF. Each lead measures the electrical activity of the heart from different perspectives. For instance, lead I measures the electrical activity between the right arm (RA) and the left arm (LA), while lead II measures the electrical activity between the right arm (RA) and the left leg (LL).
Lead III measures the electrical activity between the left arm (LA) and the left leg (LL). Furthermore, aVL provides a view of the high lateral wall of the left ventricle, which is the outer side of the heart's main pumping chamber, while aVR offers a view of the heart's right atrium and the right upper side of the heart. Lastly, aVF looks at the inferior wall of the left ventricle, which is the bottom part of the heart's pumping chamber. As you can probably guess, it's a lot more thorough than a simple ECG scan from your Apple Watch.
Using the KardiaMobile 6L is quick and easy, taking only 30 seconds. Once the process is complete, you will receive results indicating whether you suffer from AFib, Bradycardia, or Tachycardia. Bradycardia and Tachycardia are medical terms that describe abnormal heart rhythms based on the number of beats per minute (bpm). Bradycardia is when you have a slow heart rate, while with Tachycardia, you have a fast one.
Okay, but what does all this mean?The KardiaMobile 6L provides a comprehensive summary of any possible ailments you may be experiencing. In addition, the device maintains a record of all your tests in the Kardia app, along with a digital reading of each EKG wave detected during the test. These waves indicate a specific electrical activity within the heart during a heartbeat.
These waves mean nothing to anyone with no medical background, such as myself. However, physicians can review this information to provide further insight as needed. You can download this information on your phone via a PDF, order a clinician review, or speak with a cardiologist via the telephone or video call.
Are there extra costs?The KardiaMobile 6L can provide unlimited EKG readings without a subscription. However, you can subscribe to KardiaCare monthly or yearly to access additional features. These features include advanced determinations, up to four annual EKG readings by a board-certified cardiologist, monthly heart health reports, medication tracking, and more.
By subscribing, you can access three additional determinations: Sinus Rhythm with Premature Ventricular Contractions (PVCs), Sinus Rhythm with Supraventricular Ectopy (SVE), and Sinus Rhythm with Wide QRS. These determinations can help your doctor better assess your heart health.
Although subscribing to KardiaCare may benefit users with a history of heart problems, it's a good idea to consult a healthcare provider before making any such decisions. I don't have any issues with KardiaMobile attempting to generate a regular monthly income from their existing customers. However, it's a missed opportunity not to offer a free trial for KardiaCare within the app.
KardiaCare offers three subscription plans: Basic, Yearly, and Plus. The basic plan costs $12 per month, whereas the yearly plan costs $99 and helps you save some money. The KardiaCare Plus package is also available for $299, including KardiaCare for one year, a KardiaMobile 6L, and a blood pressure cuff.
The KardiaMobile 6L has a retail price of $130, though you can often find it discounted for less.
What's peace of mind worth?According to the CDC, someone in the United States has a heart attack every 40 seconds. This means that each year, about 805,000 Americans have a heart attack. Of these, 605,000 have suffered from a first heart attack.
It's important to remember that no test can guarantee that you won't have a heart attack. However, products such as KardiaMobile 6L can help you collect real-time heart health information that you and your doctor can use to assess your risks better.
The KardiaMobile 6L is a worthwhile product for older people and those with a history of heart problems, and its price is worth it. I plan to continue using it long after this review is published. Perhaps it will save my life one day or at least alert me to a growing problem with my heart.
Editors' RecommendationsTracing The Evolution Of Television's Electronic Graphics Systems In The U.S.
Perhaps a few of us still remember what it was like in ye olde days in putting "lower thirds" rolls on the air. First, a physical page with the desired lettering was prepared by either an artist who was good at lettering or (more likely) by using "press-on" letters. This artwork was then placed on a copy stand and photographed with a film camera. After development, the film was cut into frames and mounted as 35-mm "slides." These were then loaded into a telecine slide projector for airing.
Preparing and keeping track of even a few lower-third slides was an onerous task, and could grow to gargantuan proportions during live sports broadcasts or, in particular, major political conventions, where literally hundreds or thousands of i.D. Slides had to be prepared and kept at the ready. A faster/better technology was obviously needed.
Some TV ECG Pre-HistoryThe quest for a convenient means for electronically generating alphabet fonts and numbers goes back at least to the early 1950s, with the nascent computer companies seeking a more convenient machine-to-human data interface than a "Teletype" printout. This early work generally involved CRTs and was an offspring of "Lissajous" oscilloscope displays. ("I's" and "O's," along with "8s" and forward and backward "slashes" were easy to create with such analog technology, but other characters were not so simple.)
The first really "practical" electronic character generation or ECG scheme involved an adaptation of the "monoscope" tube invented in the 1930s and sold by RCA for generating the familiar "Indian head" test pattern. The monoscope resembles a small CRT, with its phosphor screen replaced by an aluminum "signal" plate with the image to be telecast printed on it. The tube's electron gun scans the plate, and the difference in secondary electron emissions between the plate and carbon-based ink used in printing the pattern provides a video representation of that image.
The "character generator" version of the monoscope replaced the TV test chart with an alphanumeric pattern. In use, the scanning beam is reduced to the size of a single character and directed to scan only the desired letter or number. The resulting signal could then be displayed on a cathode ray tube. To create a line of text requires quite a bit of "skipping" back and forth by the electron beam, and blanking while it moves between characters, creating a lot of "flicker" in the displayed characters.
This could be ameliorated to some extent by using a long persistence phosphor in the display CRT, and as such was acceptable for use in computer and airport terminal information displays, but was impractical for use in broadcast television. (The AB Dick Company, an office equipment manufacturer, was one developer of such a monoscope-based ECG system, and that company would later play a big role in the development of an ECG for television applications.)
While computer companies and transportation terminals began to shift to electronic data displays, broadcasters seemed destined to remain with the tried-and-true (but very labor-intensive) 35mm slide technology throughout the 1950s and beyond. Things began to change, however, with the emergence of digital technology in the 1960s.
A New Era in Television BeginsCredit for development of the first "true" electronic character generator goes to what is now an almost-forgotten name in the broadcast industry, CBS Laboratories, an offshoot of the CBS network. And despite that company's close ties to its parent network and a reputation for innovative broadcast technology, this first such ECG was apparently slated for military computer applications.
Announced in mid-1960, this new device was part of the company's "VIDIAC" (Visual Information Display And Control) system for CRT display of computer data. Although no name was assigned to this ECG component, it was a fully-functional device, providing a complete uppercase alphabet and numbers, along with punctuation marks and special characters such as #, !, $, and % solely by electronic means (no scanning of pre-printed physical lettersets like the earlier monoscope technology).
As high-density digital read-only memory chips had yet to be developed, magnetic core memory was used for storing the character set, with information retrieved used to turn the CRT beam on and off at designated portions of scanning lines in order to form characters. To provide a more finished look to the resulting displays, CRT beam "spot-wobbling" methodology was employed to fill in spaces between lines. Although the CBS Labs announcement described (and depicted) the display of the generator's output on a conventional oscilloscope, a block diagram shows the VIDIAC driving a magnetically-deflected CRT, allowing its output to be displayed on conventional video monitors.
After some initial early publicity, this particular ECG seems to have gone into hiding, or possibly the program scrapped, as no more information about it has been found. CBS Labs, however, would go on to play a big part in the character generator story a decade later.
The next development on the road to today's ECG appeared five years later in 1965, with RCA's Canadian computer division unveiling the "DIVCON" (Digital-to Video-CONverter).
The DIVCON inputted data from a computer or Teletype keyboard and converted it to a format displayable on television screens. The basic system occupied a full equipment rack, and could grow to three racks, depending on the number of lines of text that users desired to simultaneously display. Output was provided as a series of white dots (think dot matrix).
Although the DIVCON generated only uppercase letters, it was a true television ECG and was used on air by NBC in its 1966 U.S. Election coverage. However, the DIVCON technology was not heavily promoted by RCA and did not appear to have made much impact on the way in which most television operations were still preparing and airing "lower-thirds."
An Office Equipment Company Steps InThe next entry in the ECG field came soon after RCA's DIVCON announcement, and, rather surprisingly, came from the office equipment firm that had previously created a monoscope-based ECG system nearly a decade earlier—AB Dick, a company that had been around since the 1880s, and was much better known for its mimeograph duplicating machines.
AB Dick's entry into broadcast television occurred at the 1967 NAB Show, catching both attendees and established manufacturers of broadcast equipment there completely off guard. The new AB Dick "Videograph" could electronically create "lower-thirds" as well as "crawls," and "rolls," as fast as an operator could type them in. And while its name was the same as that given the earlier monoscope-based ECG, the resemblance ended there.
This new iteration of the "Videograph" was constructed around an early solid-state 11x9 dot matrix containing basic character shapes. Like RCA's DIVCON, it also contained a magnetic core memory, but this was used for storage of information needed to address the desired characters in the solid-state character generator chip, whose output was used to produce a standard television signal.
The CG chip provided 64 characters, which according to AB Dick promotional material, included 26 "alphabetics," 10 "numerics" and 28 "punctuation, mathematical and special symbols." The "Videograph Display Control Unit—model 990," as it was officially branded, was able to create and simultaneously display up to 512 characters in 16 rows of 32 characters per row. This newest ECG was also contained within a 19-inch-high box, as opposed to the basic DIVCON which filled an entire equipment rack.
Despite all of the show floor commotion created—and interest shown—in the new electronic marvel, AB Dick—apparently way outside of its office equipment comfort zone—decided not to market the product, turning that over instead to an established broadcast equipment developer/marketer, the Visual Electronics Corp.
In truth, the Videograph would be nothing to brag about today, delivering a single uppercase-only black-and-white font that was a bit on the "jaggy" side, and no proportional spacing ("kerning") of characters. And despite a lot of interest at the NAB Show, Videographs didn't exactly fly off the shelf.
However, some broadcasters did find them handy for instantaneously creating lower-third ID's during live interviews, and NBC purchased several units for use in football telecasts.
(Another likely factor in the lack of "buy-in" for the Videograph was the timing of its introduction. The launch by NBC of almost all of its 1965-66 schedule "In Living Color" had ignited a "color boom," triggering a mass conversion to full-color operations at the majority of stations. Most 1967 station equipment budgets (and 1967 NAB shopping) were centered on the purchase of color cameras, telecines, monitors and other gear necessary for local color origination.)
The First 'True' Television ECG EmergesWhile the 1967 NAB Show spotlight was focused on the AB Dick Videograph generator, back in its Stamford, Conn. Headquarters, CBS Labs was very much engaged in producing a broadcast-quality ECG. According to history provided by Stanley Baron, a long-time CBS Laboratories engineer, the green light was given in 1966 for development of a TV-specific ECG, with a prototype unit being privately demonstrated in 1967 to a number of TV industry executives.
And despite a positive reaction from those who saw the demo, CBS feared there would be little buy-in, and elected not to take the prototype unit into production. Fortuitously, representatives from Visual Electronics were among the elite group shown Baron's prototype, and realized it had a lot more to offer than the Videograph they were selling — so much so that Visual decided to partner with CBS in building and marketing the CBS "Vidifont," as it was dubbed.
Baron recalled that the Vidifont was a major attention-getter when it was unveiled at the 1970 NAB Show.
"After the first morning, the reaction to the Vidifont by the attendees at the conference could be compared to the crowds awaiting the opening of the doors to a shopping mall on the day after Thanksgiving, and there was a constant stream of traffic to see this new innovation," he wrote in his 2008 online essay, "First-Hand: Inventing the Vidifont: the first electronics graphics machine used in television production."
Interestingly, it was through the acquisition of some third-party technology needed in development of the Vidifont that another ECG device (and company) would come into existence.
To facilitate the Vidifont's off-line composition and editing of displays, a moderately-sized storage device was necessary. Rather than independently develop such a storage component, CBS Labs decided to utilize technology already created by a small Long Island-based company catering to the computer industry, the Systems Research Corp. Or SRC. (This SRC linear-tape storage device—the "Vidiloop"—had already been incorporated into the Visual/AB Dick Videograph). It was through CBS's interest in the Vidiloop that SRC learned of that company's ECG project and continued to track developments.)
The successful 1970 NAB premiere of the Vidifont convinced SRC to strike out on their own, with that company showing its first "in-house" ECG product in 1971. (A separate SRC in-house unit designated "Chiron Telesystems" was created to develop and market the device, with the first product offered—the model 9901— still bearing the "Videograph" name. This would soon change, with "Videograph" being dropped in favor of "Chiron.")
It's All in the NameMore than 50 years out, the reason—or reasons—for SRC's name choice of "Chiron" remains something of a mystery. In Greek mythology, "Chiron" was a Centaur known for his wisdom and medical knowledge, rather than the violence associated with other Centaurs. However, even that name was destined to change slightly in a few years.
Another unsolved mystery is that in 1971— the same year— the first "Chiron" ECG supposedly premiered, Broadcast Engineering's NAB Show product preview for that year indicates that SRC was still marketing an "enhanced" AB Dick Videograph now equipped with an "effects module" for adding word-by-word coloring, edging, and other niceties. According to the BE article, this effects module "provides a total electronic tilting capability when used in conjunction with the Chiron Vidiloop Title Storage System," (author's emphasis). This would indicate that SRC had not yet developed its own complete ECG.
By 1971, CBS Labs was marketing its complete Vidifont system, which included the SRC "Vidiloop" storage device. (Curiously, the name "Vidiloop" does not appear to have been registered for trademark protection, and a search for a "Vidiloop" patent also came up empty.) Even more confusing are the initial Chiron ads, which refer to the ECG itself as "the Chiron Vidiloop."
The Emergence of a Totally New ECGDuring this 1971-1972 timeframe, SRC appears to have been focused on totally breaking away from the AB Dick design and striking out on its own. This is evident with the debut of the "Chiron II" (Vidiloop was dropped from the name) at the 1972 NAB Show.
This new SRC entry—designed by engineering genius Eugene Leonard (who would go on to develop virtual set technology)—was considered revolutionary, as font generation was now entirely software-based, rather than relying on character sets pre-programed in magnetic core plane memories. In addition to the "stock" fonts available from Chiron (SRC), the Chiron II could also generate character sets from any user-provided printed font, alphabet, or logo with the addition of a "font compose" module and input of the desired graphic element or elements provided by a video camera.
It also provided proportional spacing of letters (kerning), and incorporated a much faster system clock (36 MHz as opposed to the Vidifont's 20 MHz) to provide the necessary leeway for creating more detailed characters and fine-tuning spaces between them. However, these niceties came at a cost—a $35K price tag (>$250K in today's money) and support equipment, including a 16-bit minicomputer, that completely filled an equipment rack.
The "Chiron-to-Chyron" name change occurred sometime in 1975, with Broadcasting magazine listing "Chiron Telesystems" among NAB Show exhibitors that year, and a year later, it was "Chyron Corp." (The company also changed addresses, relocating a relatively short distance on Long Island from its former Great Neck base of operations.)
Asked about the "i" to "y" switch in the spelling of the company name, Bill Hendler, Chryon's now-retired CTO, explained that this was necessary when the operation decided to incorporate in 1975. "A search of names revealed that 'Chiron' was already taken," Hendler said, recalling that his father had been part of the legal team handling the incorporation.
As the 1970s progressed, other companies developed and marketed ECGs for the broadcast television market—Telemation, 3M, and RCA, just to name a few—however, Chyron began to dominate the market, with additions of enhanced feature sets, a diminished amount of rack real estate, reduced complexity (microprocessor chips soon replaced the standalone Chiron II minicomputer) and lower acquisition costs.
With the passage of time and continuing success of the product, the corporate name has eventually become generic. According to Merriam-Webster's on-line dictionary, the term "Chyron" became synonymous with "lower-third" in 1990, the same year that "hoodie," "big-box" and "left-click" entered the vernacular. "Chyron" is now a name that seems destined to endure long after those of "RCA," CBS Laboratories," and "Systems Research Corp." have all been lost to history.
Acknowledgements: The author wishes to express thanks to Bill Hendler, Chyron's former CTO, who provided much valuable information for this history, and also to Chuck Conrad and his staff at the Texas Broadcast Museum for providing scans of some of the early magazine ads reproduced.
HeartBeam Receives Two New US Patents For Its Core Cardiac Monitoring Technology
Company Continues Expanding its Intellectual Property Footprint, Now has 14 US and 4 International Patents
SANTA CLARA, Calif., March 07, 2024--(BUSINESS WIRE)--HeartBeam, Inc. (NASDAQ: BEAT), a medical technology company focused on transforming cardiac care through the power of personalized insights, announced today that it has received two new patents on its core vectorelectrocardiography (VECG) technology from the United States Patent and Trademark Office. HeartBeam now has 14 issued and allowed US patents and 4 international patents for its VECG technology which collects 3D signals of the heart and converts them into a 12-lead ECG.
"HeartBeam's core VECG technology is designed to be used with portable, patient-friendly devices such as a credit-card sized system, an extended wear patch, or watch to enable physicians to monitor patients and identify cardiac health trends outside of a medical facility," said Branislav Vajdic, PhD, CEO and Founder of HeartBeam. "These new patents reinforce our strategic vision which is founded on developing and protecting our novel VECG technology and product pipeline as we work to transform how cardiac care is delivered in the future."
The first patent, "Mobile three-lead cardiac monitoring device and method for automated diagnostics" covers apparatuses and methods that facilitate the comparison of cardiac signals over time for the automated or assisted detection of heart attacks, or Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI). For each patient, HeartBeam provides a comparative baseline ECG which aids physicians in gaining richer insights about the patient's cardiac health. This approach was validated in a landmark JACC: Advances publication which demonstrated that HeartBeam's VECG approach with a comparative baseline had significantly higher diagnostic accuracy (95% Area Under the Curve or AUC) than a 12-lead ECG alone (68% AUC).
The second patent, "Apparatus for generating an electrocardiogram" covers methods and apparatuses around HeartBeam's wrist-based ECG system. This is the second patent related to HeartBeam's watch concept, which combines a continuous ECG monitor with the ability to take a high sensitivity 12-lead ECG – all in a single device designed to be worn on the wrist.
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In addition to the 14 issued and allowed US patents and 4 international patents, HeartBeam has 20 pending applications worldwide. These patents cover the core inventions in HeartBeam's VECG technology, as well as the specific applications across HeartBeam's product portfolio, including patient carried devices (HeartBeam AIMIGo™), continuous monitors (LIVMOR), extended wear patches, and watch-based 12-lead ECGs.
About HeartBeam, Inc.
HeartBeam, Inc. (NASDAQ: BEAT) is a medical technology company that is dedicated to transforming cardiac care through the power of personalized insights. The company's proprietary vectorelectrocardiography (VECG) technology collects 3D signals of the heart's electrical activity and converts them into a 12-lead ECG. This platform technology is designed to be used on portable, patient-friendly devices such as a credit-card sized monitor, watch or patch. Physicians will be able to identify cardiac health trends and acute conditions and direct patients to the appropriate care – all outside of a medical facility, thus redefining how cardiac health is managed in the future. For additional information, visit HeartBeam.Com.
Forward-Looking Statements
All statements in this release that are not based on historical fact are "forward-looking statements." While management has based any forward-looking statements included in this release on its current expectations, the information on which such expectations were based may change. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements, as a result of various factors including those risks and uncertainties described in the Risk Factors and in Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations sections of our Forms 10-K, 10-Q and other reports filed with the SEC and available at www.Sec.Gov. We urge you to consider those risks and uncertainties in evaluating our forward-looking statements. We caution readers not to place undue reliance upon any such forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. Except as otherwise required by the federal securities laws, we disclaim any obligation or undertaking to publicly release any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statement contained herein (or elsewhere) to reflect any change in our expectations with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based.
View source version on businesswire.Com: https://www.Businesswire.Com/news/home/20240307488461/en/
Contacts
Investor Relations Contact:Chris TysonExecutive Vice PresidentMZ North AmericaDirect: 949-491-8235BEAT@mzgroup.Uswww.Mzgroup.Us
Media Contact: media@heartbeam.Com
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