Doctors could soon be sending heart patients home with a high-tech toilet seat that can let your healthcare team know if your heart is having problems.
Let's face it... it's the one monitor that you can't escape. Everyone has to go to the toilet. And while patients might not check their blood pressure, oxygen levels, etc on a regular basis, if you send them home from the hospital with THIS, you know it'll be used daily. Researchers say the biggest benefit is that they get regular monitoring without the patient having to make any changes in habit or behavior.
And the amount of information doctors can get from these toilet seats is amazing. The toilet seats are equipped to measure the electrical and mechanical activity of the heart, and can monitor heart rate, blood pressure, blood oxygenation levels, and the patient’s weight and stroke volume, which is the amount of blood pumped out of the heart at every beat.
It's the perfect solution to the problem of patients not complying with the doctor's instructions. And it may solve the bigger problem of congestive heart failure patients being readmitted to the hospital.
So far, tests show it's working. Studies show it can detect deterioration in a patient's condition up to a month before a patient would normally wind up in a hospital with heart issues. That gives doctors time to intervene... such as changing medication... and potentially keep patients from ending up in the hospital at all.
Only question I have is, how do they know WHO is using the toilet? Do you have to check in when you sit down? That's a little disconcerting. But again, it's better than making an emergency run to the hospital...