Fitbit Smartphone App Helps Determine Right Cardiac Treatment

For a New Jersey resident, using a fitness tracker benefited him in a big way. The doctors in the emergency room used the activity tracker to help identify the best method to treat his recent heart problem.

The 42-year-old man went to the ER after he had a seizure. The doctors found out that his heart rate was irregular and rapid, which measured up to 190 beats per minute. Even if the man had experienced seizures previously, he said that he has never had a heart problem.

To treat the patient, the doctors needed to know when his irregular heartbeat had started. If it was a recent problem, one that started in the last few days before his visit, the doctors said that they could use a procedure called cardioversion. In this specific treatment, shocks of low energy are given to bring back the patient's normal heart rate. However, if it had started weeks or months ago, then that specific treatment may not have any effect, USA Today reported. 

Generally, people cannot always tell if they have an irregular heart rate; hence, doctors cannot expect for a definite answer as to when it started, NPR reported. However in this case, the doctors noticed the man was wearing the Fitbit Charge HR, which included an accurate heart rate monitor, so they retrieved up the person's heart rate information on the app in his smartphone. They then saw that his heart rate was usually 70 to 80 beats per minute, but had jumped to 140 to 160 bpm about 3 hours before he arrived in the emergency room.

"Using the patient's activity tracker - in this case, a Fitbit- we were able to pinpoint exactly when the patient's normal heart rate of 70 jumped up," study co-author Dr. Alfred Sacchetti, chief of emergency services at Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center in New Jersey, said in a statement. This gave doctors the information they needed to decide whether the man was a candidate for the cardioversion treatment or not.

With the help of the Fitbit, the man's heart rate was brought back to its normal bpm range with the right shock treatment.