ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire) — At least 26 million people worldwide have congestive heart failure, and heart failure itself is the leading cause of death globally. Congestive heart failure doesn’t happen suddenly, and if you don’t know the symptoms you may not know you have it.
Congestive heart failure can completely change someone’s life.
“On a day-to-day basis, it reduces patient’s capabilities to do their everyday work,” said Niraj Varma, MD, cardiac electrophysiologist at Cleveland Clinic.
Symptoms include chest pain, shortness of breath, weight gain, and a persistent cough or wheezing.
“In the extreme forms, people can’t walk 10 yards,” described Dr. Varma.
Currently, the only ways to detect congestive heart failure are blood tests, X-rays, stress tests, CT scans, or echo- or electrocardiograms also known as ECGs. But a study from the heart rhythm society has found a possible new method: your smartwatch.
“When you’re purchasing the watches, you want to make sure that the device has the capability of recording ECGs,” said Matthew McKillop, MD, electrophysiologist at Baptist Health.
Just utilizing the information found in ECGs, the researchers had a 90% success rate in identifying congestive heart failure. This opens the door to capturing the same information on your watch instead having to go to the doctor’s office.
“We can act much sooner,” Dr. McKillop told Ivanhoe.
That way instead of spending time diagnosing, doctors can get right to treatment.
“There’s a lot of valuable health information that these wearable devices are collecting,” stated Dr. McKillop.
Smartwatches have already been proven to detect atrial fibrillation, but Dr. McKillop stresses the information captured by the watch should be interpreted by a medical professional.
To see if your smartwatch can captures ECGs, look at the watch features on the manufacturer’s website, or ask the seller.
Contributors to this news report include: Marcy Wilder, Associate Producer; Roque Correa, Editor.
Source:
https://www.heartrhythmopen.com/article/S2666-5018(25)00023-6/fulltext
https://carrushealth.com/2020/01/31/how-is-congestive-heart-failure-diagnosed/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/02/250206113721.htm
* For More Information, Contact: Kathryn Ely
Department Coordinator at Cleveland Clinic
Halle Bishop
Project Manager IV for Corporate Communications at Cleveland Clinic
and
Wesley Roberts
Media & Public Relations Manager for Baptist Health
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