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From Apply Now, Former About.com Guide to High Blood Pressure

iPods Increase Physician Accuracy in Diagnosing Heart Problems

Tuesday March 27, 2007

Diagnosing heart problems often begins when your doctor listens to your heart with a stethoscope. A heathly, normal heart has a distinct set of sounds associated with each cycle of contraction and relaxation, known as the cardiac cycle. Doctors are trained to recognize these healthy sounds as well as a large number of abnormal and potentially problematic variations.

The problem is that accuracy in identifying these abnormal sounds is pretty low. Studies have shown that, on average, doctors identify a particular sound with the specific abnormality it indicates only about 40% of the time. While this statistic is a little misleading - often doctors only need to recognize that a sound is abnormal instead of having to specifically identify a particular associated problem - higher accuracy is always a good thing.

Trials have shown that after listening to specific heart sounds repeatedly using normal iPods, the identification accuracy increased to around 80%, leading some to suggest that the devices be integrated into standard education and review.

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