A smart-technology wearable wristband may be able to automatically detect cardiac arrest, according to new research published in Circulation: Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Heart Association. The DETECT-1b study, conducted in the Netherlands, analyzed data from 49 adults with abnormal heart rhythms who underwent a medical procedure in which a life-threatening heart rhythm was briefly induced. Pulseless ventricular tachycardia (pVT) or ventricular fibrillation (VF) was induced during treatment to correct irregular rhythms. The algorithm-based wristband 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 Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen, Netherlands. “A smart technology wristband capable of automatically detecting cardiac arrest and triggering an alert could function as a digital witness.” The device uses a photoplethysmography algorithm to measure changes in blood flow in the wrist, offering continuous and unobtrusive monitoring in daily life. This contrasts with previous approaches, as lead author Roos Edgar, M.Sc., noted: “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.”
The study recorded 59 shockable cardiac arrest events, with only nine false positives during 125 hours of recording. Cameron Dezfulian, M.D., FAHA, chair of the American Heart Association’s Resuscitation Science Symposium Program Committee, who was not involved in the study, commented: “What is more impressive than the ability of this technology to detect cardiac arrest is the fairly low frequency of false positives it detected.” He added that this parallels findings from studies in Canada and the U.S., indicating great potential for the technology. However, he noted that pulseless electrical activity remains the most common presenting rhythm in cardiac arrest and accounted for a small number of validation data, emphasizing the need for further research.
The research was conducted in a controlled clinical setting, which is a limitation. The system’s effectiveness in real-world conditions still needs evaluation. Future applications could connect the wristband to emergency dispatch centers and volunteer responder networks, enabling immediate alerts when cardiac arrest is detected. The study is part of the broader DETECT project, a collaboration of several hospitals and a company in the Netherlands.
