Profs. Ki Chon and Faquir Jain and their collaborators at UMass Med and WPI have received official notice of a new research grant entitled “Wearable Devices for In-Home Monitoring of Patients with Heart Failure at Risk of Decompensation” from the NSF. This is a 4-year grant in the amount of $1.15M. Prof. Chon is the PI and Prof. Jain is the Co-PI.The goals of the project are to develop and clinically evaluate a prototype home-care telehealth monitoring device to collect real-time data about cardiac performance and risk factors for people with heart failure (HF) and atrial fibrillation (AF). The monitoring system will be the first practical implementation of transthoracic bio-impedance measurements obtained from novel dry electrodes to accurately detect intrathoracic volume retention and predict decompensation of acute HF. The system will consist of a bioimpedance monitor (a wearable vest with dry electrodes–no adhesives, gels or wetting required) to detect trending to acute decompensated HF and of a smart watch to measure AF. These components will require the development of novel sensor and information technologies, wearable monitors, signal processing algorithms, and telecommunication systems.
The long-term goal of this project is to enable in-home monitoring of patients at risk of catastrophic cardiovascular events in order to provide prompt, targeted intervention, reduce symptom progression and avert preventable hospitalization. A wireless cardiac monitoring system that will be comfortable to wear, easy to use, cost effective, and feasible for home use with ambulatory patients will be developed. The system will provide patients and their healthcare providers with early warnings about cardiac decompensation and serious but difficult-to-detect arrhythmias, which can empower patients and caregivers, improve quality of life, and reduce health care costs.
Published: Jan 29, 2024