Singapore Atrial Fibrillation Study

Atrial fibrillation is a common disease in the aging population that has severe implication if left untreated as it leads to embolic stroke and other embolic phenomenon. Embolic stroke in particular has severe implications to our community as the cost of care for such immobile patients can be extremely high. Atrial fibrillation typically begins as Paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (PAF), which makes early detection extremely difficult as the PAF may only occur transiently in the initial stages. Long term continuous ECG monitoring is currently required over weeks to detect early PAF. Current devices typically need to be implanted (loop recorders) to be sensitive enough to detect infrequent episodes of PAF. New generation ECG remote devices (non-invasive) are however now available that are wearable over long periods and can send data directly to a database for centralized collection and analysis of the data. The aim of this study will be to use such a device to evaluate the incidence of PAF in different population of patients, with each patient wearing and sending continuous ECG data for periods of a week or more to a central database, across several public hospitals in Singapore.