Self-Monitoring of Cardiac Risk while Running Around Ancona

Running is the most common physical activity. Being an aerobic activity, it can act as a trigger for critical cardiac events that may degenerate in sport-related sudden cardiac death. Nowadays, smartphone applications combined with wearable sensors are typically used to monitor runner's performance during training, but almost never to evaluate their cardiac risk conditions. Thus, aim of this study was to propose CaRiSMA as a useful Android application for self-monitoring of cardiac activity of runners while wearing a cardiac sensor and running by strictly following a route around the city of Ancona (6.1 Km). Cardiac data from 10 young runners were recorded and transferred to a smartphone to be analyzed by CaRiSMA, an Android application that provides two traffic lights as output, relative to cardiac health status of the runner and correctness of training intensity. The first traffic light was green in all cases but one for which it was yellow, indicating no risk and increased risk conditions, respectively. The second traffic light was yellow in all cases, suggesting a reduction of the training intensity. In conclusion, CaRiSMA demonstrated to be a potentially useful Android application for self-monitoring of cardiac activity of runners while wearing a cardiac sensor.