Car Seat That Monitors Drivers' Heart Activity

Ford Motor's advanced research engineers from its European Research Centre in Aachen, Germany, working closely with Rheinisch-Westf?lische Technische Hochschule, Aachen University, have developed a prototype vehicle seat that can monitor a driver's heart activity and could one day reduce the number of accidents and fatalities that occur as a result of motorists having heart attacks behind the wheel.
The prototype Ford seat employs ECG technology that monitors the heart's electrical impulses and detects signs of irregularity that can provide an early warning that a driver should seek medical advice, because he might be impacted by a heart attack or other cardiovascular issues. Whereas a normal ECG machine in a doctor's office requires metal electrodes to be attached to the skin at various points on the body, the Ford ECG seat has six built-in sensors that can detect heart activity through the driver's clothing.
"The system will be able to detect if someone is having a cardiovascular issue, for example, a heart attack, and could also be used to detect the symptoms of other conditions, such as high blood pressure or electrolyte imbalances. This not only benefits the driver but also could make the roads safer for all users," said Dr. Achim Lindner, Ford Research Centre medical officer.
Ford is also testing the prototype seat to understand how it could work with other advanced systems within Ford vehicles to warn a driver to pull over and seek medical attention or possibly even send out an alert to emergency medical workers, if necessary.
Lindner also said that the mobile phone could play a key role as the interface for any future application of the technology. Connected to a system such as Ford SYNC with MyFord Touch, due to arrive in Europe in 2012, the Ford heart rate monitoring seat potentially could use the driver's mobile phone to send a message to medical centers, alerting doctors to irregular heart activity. The seat also could be linked to SYNC's Emergency Assistance function to inform emergency response teams of the driver's heart condition before, during, and after an accident.
Ford is exploring how advanced safety technologies, such as Lane Departure Warning with Lane Keeping Aid, Active City Stop, and Speed Limiter, could work together with the heart rate monitoring seat to help protect drivers in cases where they experience heart problems. Ford's engineers also are studying how the heart monitoring seat can be used to observe heart patients and allow doctors to maintain a record of heart activity that can be transmitted to medical professionals and reduce the need for visits to the hospital.
"Although currently still a research project, this technology could prove to be an important breakthrough. As always in medicine, the earlier a condition is detected the easier it is to treat, and this technology even has the potential to be instrumental in diagnosing heart conditions early," said Lindner.
In early tests, the Ford heart monitoring seat has recorded accurate readings during 98% of driving time for 95% of drivers. Ford's research engineers are continuing to study how sensors can be made to record signals through a greater number of materials, including those that interrupt readings with their own electrical activity.

Heart Health Facts
It is a misconception that heart attacks are always accompanied by severe chest pain; some victims suffer no pain at all, and an American study found that a third of people who suffered a heart attack did not call an ambulance (UK National Health Service).
Across the EU in 2008, men were nearly twice as likely to die from a heart attack as women (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and European Commission).
More than one quarter of the world's adult population suffered from hChuck Taylor All Star