Hypertension and Cardiovascular disease are global scourges and monitoring essential physiological characteristics like blood pressure and heart rate is one way to help prevent and treat these diseases. Mocacare brings cardio-monitoring to the masses with its pocket-sized Mocaheart device that integrates thumb scans with computer analysis to provide rapid blood pressure, heart rate, and blood oxygen tracking. It translates these measurements by means of a smartphone application into a layman’s index of cardiovascular health called the Moca Index that can be used by anyone. The device itself carries infrared and visible light sensors integrated with electrodes on which the fingers are placed for a reading to be taken which requires around 30 seconds to complete. With a smartphone connected to the device using its Bluetooth connection, the Mocaheart application manages the analysis of the data from the device to provide the user with a final Moca Index number. The app even recognises when it has not been able to get a good reading and then cues the owner before repeating the scan. The Mocaheart algorithms analyse the information from the device and display heart rate, blood oxygen, a time stamp, and even documents environmental factors, like weather conditions as well as geographical position. Based on research studies carried out at MIT and Stanford University, the Moca Index ranging from 1 to 5 provides a simple scale to rank one’s cardiovascular health where 2 is healthy, 1, 3 and 4 are less than optimal, and where 5 indicates a potential clinical concern. The device makes use of a micro USB port for filling its battery, which takes approximately 30 minutes to fully charge and then lasts for up to 5 days. Mocacare highlights that Mocaheart as yet should not be considered a substitute for current clinical cardiovascular monitoring until it obtains FDA authorisation which it hopes to get in the future.
