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What to do when the heart stumbles?


NDR-Visite TV programme: Atrial fibrillation: What to do when the heart stumbles?

NDR-Visite TV report: Recognising palpitations or heart palpitations in good time with the help of a heart patch or smartwatch.


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In a television report on the NDR health programme Visite, Prof. Dr Rolf Wachter from Göttingen University Hospital reports on how atrial fibrillation can be detected early with the help of a rhythm patch. The effect of the patch was clinically tested in the DZHK study SCREEN-AF.

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Atrial fibrillation is a cardiac arrhythmia that affects over 30 million people worldwide. The irregular heartbeat can cause the blood in the atria to clot. If such clots enter the brain and block blood vessels, a stroke occurs. Atrial fibrillation is one of the main causes of stroke in older people.

Experts agree that many strokes could be prevented if atrial fibrillation is recognised at an early stage. A mobile rhythm patch, as tested in the SCREEN-AF study at the DZHK, offers a new approach for the early detection of atrial fibrillation. The patch detects the irregular heartbeat in patients at risk ten times more frequently than conventional diagnostics. This is the result of a new transatlantic study involving researchers from Canada and Germany. The mobile procedure could therefore be suitable for the early detection of atrial fibrillation and thus prevent strokes.

 

Further information on the SCREEN-AF-DZHK15 study

Results of the SCREEN-AF-DZHK15 study