LUCKNOW: Sami Saud, a student of computer engineering at Aligarh Muslim University, took a year-and-a-half to work on a mobile ECG device which will reflect the condition of heart on laptops or mobile phones display, making it easy for the patient to see and reach out to the cardiologist swiftly. Those suspected to have heart issues can carry it around with them.
It will help address issues like sudden cardiac arrest leading to demise of the person within no time, as such cases have gone considerably up after the pandemic. The finger-sized ECG device has been developed by Saud, a second year student of M.Tech, after going through a complex research process under the guidance of Prof Sarosh Umar and Dr Muneeb Khan of the computer engineering department of AMU.
According to Saud, he initially worked on a hardware for four months but failed to get the required results. He started working on another hardware again and finall, he was able to make a break through. “
Sharing the mode of operation, Saud said that as the finger-sized device is placed at a point on the chest near the heart, it starts measuring the heart beats just like the ECG. “The device would then be connected either to the laptop or mobile phone through blue tooth and generate pictures the pulse on the display.
The device has a built-in machinery algorithm which can detect the abnormality in heart functioning and the report of it could be sent across to the cardiologist concerned through WhatsApp. After removing the initial glitches and errors, the device was designed afresh. It was tested on the patients with cardiac issues. The device was put to test on cardiology patients of AMU Medical college and general public as well, said Saud. The device gave encouraging results, matching findings of ECG machines installed in hospital. The device was tested for a period of eight months.
On what is the way forward, Saud says that for now, there was some refinement left to be done in the hardware to make it match the industry level. “After completing those modalities, we will go for its patenting by next month. Then we will collaborate with some tech company for its market production,” says Saud. Saud said that the initial cost incurred in making the device stood out to be around Rs 12,000, which was a bit inflated but the market value would be around Rs 4,000-Rs 5,000.”