ECG monitoring of heart failure and pilot load/overload by the Vesla seat pad.
Heart failure has caused sudden incapacitation of pilots in command of commerical airliners. These fatal episodes have occurred in connection with takeoffs and landings, and have resulted in incidents as well as major accidents in which more than 300 people have been killed. Coronary attack may be verified later at autopsy. Sudden cardiac arrest or serious episodes, such as ventricular tachycardia, usually cannot be detected at autopsy. A number of accidents due to unknown reasons or to "pilot error" can be due to, and some probably are, cardiac breakdown. It is today possible, with the Vesla Seat Pad, to monitor the pilot's ECG. The Vesla Seat Pad is a device for biomedical monitoring of ECG signals from human subjects without attachment to the subjects of any leads or sensor devices. The Vesla pad on which a human subject may rest, requires no power source. It is capable of obtaining appropriate ECG signals, transmitted to the pad through the medium of the subject's perspiration, for monitoring the subject's heart action. ECG signals, together with other data, can be electronically processed and used to warn the co-pilot and tower of impending hazard. The "dead man's button" with an OVERLOAD warning system could greatly, when taken into use, improve flying safety.
D000337:Aerospace Medicine / Q000295:instrumentation*; D004562:Electrocardiography / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans