Mobile Heart Rate Detection System (MoHeRDS) for Early Warning of Potentially-Fatal Heart Diseases

Most health institutes and common hospitals use a continuous cardiac monitoring machine that is immobile, big and heavy, costly and is not equipped with an option to send warnings if there is an alarming change in the patient's heart rate. Thus, the purpose of this research is to design and develop a device prototype that detects alarming changes of a person's heart rate and sends a warning immediately via Short Message Service (SMS) to receivers such as doctors, family members, a person in charge, or monitoring system application. The objective is achieved by developing a program for Arduino microcontroller that enables a pulse sensor module to detect alarming changes of a user's heart rate through photoplethysmography technique and utilizes a GSM Shield module to act as an SMS interface between the device prototype and receivers. The relevancy of Mobile Heart Rate Detection System (MoHeRDS) device is investigated through a survey that has resulted in positive responses from 70 respondents mainly from the health sector where 100% of them agree that MoHeRDS is relevant and some deem it very relevant to be one of the helping factors for early warning of Potentially-Fatal Heart Diseases (such as heart attacks, heart failures, etc.). Furthermore, MoHeRDS is palm-sized, portable and has a reasonable low cost. Thus, with the implementation of MoHeRDS in the health sectors, individuals with risk of potentially-fatal heart diseases can get immediate treatment hence reducing their death statistics.