By SIMON COLLINS science reporter
Auckland University scientists have developed a tiny radio-based device that can monitor a patient's heartbeat without the need to be wired up to a machine.
It lets hospital patients go for a short walk without losing radio contact with the machines that monitor their vital functions.
The university's
commercial arm, UniServices, believes it could have a huge market. The world's hospitals spend US$2 billion ($2.9 billion) a year alone on heart-monitoring electrocardiogram (ECG) machines.
The wireless device was originally developed to monitor rabbits.
Associate Professor Simon Malpas, a world-leading researcher on high blood pressure, was using rabbits to test the origins of nerve signals that are one of the first signs of developing high blood pressure in humans. But he found it impractical to wire the rabbits to machines.
So he went to the university's Bioengineering Institute. Hardware development leader Dr David Budgett has now developed what he believes is the only device in the world that can monitor nerve signals in a patient up to five metres from a machine.
It is being displayed to science ministers from the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) countries in Christchurch today, and will be launched at a conference in the United States next month.
Initially, it will be aimed at animal research and veterinary care - markets worth around US$50 million ($74 million) a year.
But Dr Malpas believes it will be useful for human heart and intensive care units, monitoring premature babies, and for sports medicine.
Dr Malpas said salt was a major factor in high blood pressure.
"When you and I eat salt, we quickly excrete it," he said. "For some reason, when some people eat salt, their kidneys don't get rid of it.
"We hope our research group will be able to look at this over much longer time periods [because patients will no longer need to stay wired to a machine]."
Heart problems
* 11 per cent of New Zealanders, including 14 per cent of Maori and Pacific people, have high blood pressure, regarded as a warning sign of looming heart problems.
* Salt contributes to high blood pressure for some people.
* Some people's kidneys don't get rid of salt so their blood pressure goes up.
The Telemetry Project
