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Wearable devices, fitness trackers could interfere with heart implants: Study

Source: India Today Feb-24-2023 3 min read

Smart scales, smart watches, and smart rings with bioimpedance technology could create interference with voltage values exceeding threshold levels.

By India Today Web Desk: A new study has found that smart wearable devices used to track fitness and wellness could affect implanted cardiac devices like pacemakers. The technology could create interference in patients with Cardiac Implantable Electronic Devices (CIEDs), researchers found.

The wide availability of medical bioimpedance technology, which was initially limited to hospitals and medical practitioners, has increased the need to understand the effect it has on the body. Researchers said that driven by the increasing demand of consumers to monitor their own health and the benefits of doing so continuously outside of the hospital setting, bioimpedance technology is becoming more ubiquitous.

Researchers said that smart scales, smart watches, and smart rings with bioimpedance technology could create interference with voltage values exceeding threshold levels. Researchers found that the level of interference varied with the frequency and amplitude of the bioimpedance signal, and between male and female models.

The findings published in the journal Heart Rhythm revealed that the level of interference generated with smart scale and smart ring simulations was lower than with smartwatches.

"The results indicate that these consumer electronic devices could interfere in patients with CIEDs. The present findings do not recommend the use of these devices in this population due to potential interference," researchers said in the journal.

Bioimpedance devices apply alternating, low-amplitude, painless electrical current using an electrode and then measured the resulting voltage generated by the body using a different pair of electrodes. Researchers said that changes that occur as a result of disease will alter the ionic and cellular integrity of tissues and fluids, thus affecting their ability to conduct alternating electrical currents, which ultimately will impact the characteristics of the voltage signal recorded.

The team of researchers from the University of Utah evaluated the electrical safety of measuring bioimpedance using technical specifications. The purpose of the study was to determine the level of interference in CIEDs during bioimpedance.

"The level of interference generated with smart scale and smart rings simulations was lower than with smartwatches. Across device manufacturers, generators demonstrated susceptibility to oversensing and pacing inhibition at different signal amplitudes and frequencies," the study found.

“Bioimpedance sensing generated an electrical interference that exceeded Food and Drug Administration-accepted guidelines and interfered with proper CIED functioning,” lead researcher, Dr. Benjamin Sanchez Terrones, of the University of Utah, told The Guardian.