San Diego based Scripps Health, a US health provider that treats half a million patients annually, has reported results at the American Heart Association of two studies of technology developed by MindMics that monitors cardiac functions via a consumer wearable form factor. Each consumer wearable incorporates technology based on infrasonic haemodynography, developed by MindMics.

The first presentation by Scripps Health at the AHA was entitled “Hearing the Heart” and demonstrated that MindMics’ earbud technology can measure cardiac functions with similar accuracy to current invasive procedures. “We demonstrated high correlation between bio-signals from MindMics’ earbuds, echocardiography, and cardiac catheterisations, specifically in capturing cardiovascular performance measures,” said Sanjeev Bhavnani, MD, Principal Investigator of Scripps Health study.

The second presentation titled “Can a novel ear-bud technology detect severe aortic stenosis? Modernising the Wiggers diagram through infrasonic haemodynography synchronised with echocardiography and cardiac catheterisation” showed MindMics’ earbud technology has the potential to detect aortic stenosis, a difficult to detect cardiac condition that can lead to sudden death. “Infrasonic Haemodynography appears to be a new method for noninvasive measurement of severe aortic stenosis. This represents a promising development to detect valvular disease independent of invasive and expensive methods like echocardiography and cardiac catheterisation” said Dr Bhavnani.

Both studies obtained results using a infrasonic hemodynography, which can be embedded into fully functioning consumer earbuds and used to measure multiple bio-signals including Heart Rate (HR) and Heart Rate Variability (HRV).

According to MindMics, unlike traditional wearable devices that rely on reflected light or electrical signals collected through the skin, Infrasonic Haemodynography measures bio-signals by detecting inaudible sounds created by the heart and other internal organs. By collecting these sounds in the ear canal, where the ear’s natural acoustics provide built-in amplification, the fidelity of the bio-signal is fine enough to capture the opening and closing of individual heart valves. And since it relies on signals at inaudible frequencies, MindMics technology can be readily integrated into a fully functioning set of consumer earbuds which can be used concurrently while listening to music or using the phone, for example.

“MindMics is committed to bringing a new level of real-time health monitoring accuracy and convenience to consumers worldwide. We are grateful for the tremendous work the team at Scripps Health is doing to validate that medical-grade data is possible in a consumer hearable device. We are excited about the opportunities this opens up to empower consumers to better manage their health and look forward to sharing details about our product and service offerings in the near future,” said Anna Barnacka, Ph.D., MindMics founder and CEO.