App screens for arrhythmia using smartphone camera
The signs of certain diseases or health conditions can sometimes appear on people’s faces: Pale eyelids may indicate anemia, a yellow tinge to the skin could signal jaundice, and cracked lips may be a warning sign of diabetes. Now MIT Media Lab spinout Cardiio has developed a mobile app that uses a smartphone camera to detect facial signs of a heart arrhythmia associated with strokes. It does so by measuring and analyzing minute changes of light reflected on the skin as the result of the underlying pulse. Cardiio is the startup behind the popular fitness app of the same name, launched in 2012, that calculates heart rate based off facial light reflection. It works because each heartbeat increases the volume of blood in the user’s vessels. Blood’s hemoglobin absorbs light, which decreases the light reflected by the skin. The Cardiio app tracks those tiny changes in reflected light, not visible to the...