What tune would your AF heart play?

[AnneTS]

I came across this article in the "I" newspaper yesterday.

inews.co.uk/essentials/news...

Beating her heart condition at its own game? Elaine Chew, an accomplished pianist and music professor at Queen Mary, University of London (QMUL), has experienced irregular heartbeats, or arrhythmia, since childhood. This time last year she was so ill she couldn’t walk down the street without stopping to rest. Now, she has developed a novel approach that could help patients with heart conditions like hers. What does it involve? Translating electrocardiogram (ECG) data from patients into a sheet of music. Intriguing – but is she well enough to work? The academic, who was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation, the most common form of arrhythmia, which raises the risk of stroke five-fold, underwent a successful operation last November and is in good health now. It was while she was in hospital recovering that she came up with a way to help treat patients. What happened? Professor Chew was chatting with a medic when the doctor mentioned in passing a Christmas quiz question he’d come up with to test his colleagues’ know-how. The cardiology expert, Dr Jem Lane, researched music with rhythms similar to different types of arrhythmia and challenged his colleagues to guess the heart rhythms the pieces most resembled. And that sparked an idea? Yes. Professor Chew realised that it could be possible to harness music to offer better treatments to patients with irregular heartbeats. Currently, heart rhythms are recorded with an ECG. Cardiologists study the data closely – with their eyes – to diagnose a patient and suggest treatment. What did Professor Chew suggest? That the data could be treated as a digital record of the “symphony” performed by the heart. She enlisted a team of researchers to translate ECG data into music which can be performed by any player and listenrd to by anybody. How does that help? “Translated into music, everyone can have a better idea of what arrhythmia feels like for a patient.” the academic told an audience at the British Science Festival in Brighton. More importantly, this approach could reveal hidden patterns in ECG data, which can be used to divide patients into finer categories so that they can receive more personalised treatment in the future. Is her theory being put into practice? Professor Chew’s consultant cardiologist, Dr Pier Lambiase now collaborates with his former patient on her research. “At the moment, nearly 40 per cent of patients do not respond to the standard treatment that we offer,” he said. “We need to develop new approaches, like the one Elaine is pursuing, to improve our categorisation of the patients and offer more individually tailored treatment to give better care.”

Read more at: inews.co.uk/essentials/news...

Anne

[BobD Volunteer]

Interesting and if nothing else it is another string of research which can't be bad.

[Buffafly]

Fascinating! When my heart gets really upset it plays 'The Dead March' - heavy slow beats, runs and pauses 😰

[OzLynda]

How wonderful ! I can just imagine musical sequences based on the AF ECGs. Wouldn't it be good if we could capture and include the sound files in our messages here, to better explain to others what our particular AF is like?. And re-play to our Cardiologists/EPs in future to help in their understanding of us.

Do we have to wait for the researchers referred to? Maybe there's some technology whiz's on inspire who could write a program to scan ECGs and translate to electronic music?

I'll watch with much interest for further progress on the idea.

[AnneTS in reply to OzLynda]

Do you think if we put all the replies together we could make up an orchestra!!

[OzLynda]

PS Anyone else remember the Sophia Loren / Peter Sellers movie with the song 'Goodness Gracious Me' ? He's a link - wonder if she had AF

youtube.com/watch?v=2nTBNHw...(Not working as expected?)

[AnneTS in reply to OzLynda]

Oh that is good!! How wonderful if our AF played that tune and for that reason!!

Anne

[dedeottie]

I dont think I want to hear my AF ad well as feel it. I use music with a steady rhythm to calm me down when in AF. Once or twice it has helped bring me back to NSR which I put down to being calm and steadying my breathing. X

[AnneTS in reply to dedeottie]

Thanks for your input dedeottie. Anne x

[WendyWu20]

My heart is definitely playing a syncopated jazz rhythm. Syncopation - two separate beats bouncing off each other!

[AnneTS in reply to WendyWu20]

If that was real music the heart was playing it wouldn't be so bad and might even be enjoyable. Hope your jazzy heart is not giving you too much trouble! Anne

[Mazza23]

I think mine plays lets twist again haha

[AnneTS in reply to Mazza23]

That sounds a very tiring beat Mazza. Hope it also does something more sedate!!

[AnneTS]

I do thank you for your replies. They show just how different AF feels for each of us! Anne

[WendyWu20 in reply to AnneTS]

I actually love to listen to syncopated jazz music - but when my heart is deciding to be a one man band, it feels terrible! Anyway, feeling chilled now as my AF has finally stopped after two days - yay :o)

[AnneTS in reply to WendyWu20]

Long may the calm last. I love to listen to syncopated jazz too and if my AF heart played that rhythm instead of its normal cacophony I would be a happy bunny!