Wellue Holter ECG Monitor, Professional 12 Lead ECG Monitors, 24-Hour ECG Holter Record With AI Analysis, Work With Mac & Windows PDF Report Export, Portable Heart Monitor For Home Use

This is review of Wellue 12 lead (TH12 model) Holter Monitor. Although it costs a significant amount of money it still is an astounding value, especially considering it's a 12-lead 24-hour monitor that includes online ECG analysis at no additional cost. In a private medical setting, it could cost the same or more for just one report. The package includes everything, I mean everything including the software on a USB drive, two 10 electrode pack (ten needed for one 24 hour recording) and 6 batteries (one needed for one 24 hour recording). Commendable attention to detail. The most important aspect of the analysis is obtaining a clear ECG recording without any interference. Minimising interference requires meticulous attention to skin preparation and electrode placement. Ensuring clear ECG most of the time is vital to avoid difficulties in interpretation. Reading this fully should help in achieving this. 1. First things first. The device comes with ‘Operator’s Manual’. Read it fully. Although it can look complicated all becomes very easy after the first use. 2. Skin preparation is the essential first step. Shave any hair where electrodes attach to the skin, as hair can hinder electrode contact and fall off. Afterwards, rub the skin with a damp cloth to remove oils and debris, then dry it for better electrode contact. 3. Understanding the leads are helpful. For instance, LL stands for Left Leg, RL for Right Leg, LA for Left Arm, and RA for Right Arm. While a standard ECG involves placing these leads on limbs, for a 24-hour recording, these are necessarily placed on the chest. 4. Pay close attention to the positions outlined in the booklet. Identifying the fourth intercostal space is important. To locate it, run your finger from the front of neck down the breastbone until you feel a bump just a few fingers breadth from neck. Moving to the sides from there, you'll feel the bone, marking the end of the second rib. The space below is the second intercostal space. Count down to the third and then the fourth. V1 is just to the right of the breastbone. Attach V1 electrode on the right and V2 to the left. Next use a mirror to find the mid-axillary line, which is an imaginary line down from middle of the collar bone. V4 is in the fifth intercostal space along this line. V3 goes midway between V2 and V4. Face the left side of your chest in front of a mirror, and place V6 at the same level as V4, in the middle of the left chest in side view. No need to count rib space for V6. V5 is between V6 and V4. 5. Limb leads (LL, LA, RL, RA) have the most potential to give artifacts if placed improperly. Placing electrodes on bony prominences minimises baseline disturbances. LA (left side) and RA (right side) can go on the outer third of collarbones, to minimise artifacts in recordings. For LL and RL leads, feel the lower edge of rib cage on sides of chest and place electrode over the lower ribs in the outer chest on right (RL) and left (LL). Ensure electrodes are sticking well to the skin by pressing all around its edges, avoiding hard pressure on the center to prevent gel from spreading out and thus drying faster which can cause air pockets. 6. When attaching electrode-wires ensure wires are not entangled by separating them. Otherwise they can pull each other and distort recordings. Wear the Holter device around your neck (preferred than belt as there won’t put tension especially on LL, LA wires) and again check there is no tension or pulling of the electrode wires when you move your arms, bend or turn. 7. Accurate lead placement is crucial to obtaining expected typical ECG wave patterns. Incorrect lead placement can result in unusual patterns. Don’t mix up left and right (LL, RL etc.). 8. Despite meticulous attention, some artifacts are inevitable with certain movements but most of the recordings should be clear. That is why the accompanying manual cautions ‘Stay in a resting state during the recording process..’ If you experience symptoms, (that’s when you want to know if symptoms are related to heart) stand still or sit down still to improve recording quality. Despite the right advice in the booklet to rest during the recordings except small amount like walking, I went for a brisk walk for 20 minutes, did several housework and used treadmill walking at 7kph for 30 minutes to see how much interference occurs. See attached images. Image 1 shows what a normal recording looks like. Images 2, 3 and 4 shows interference. Image 5 while brisk walking on treadmill. No heart irregularity in any of these. What you see are all interference due to muscle contractions and electrode movement. Each 24-hour recording uses ten electrodes, which are your main ongoing expense. One can continue to do further two 24 hour recordings on the same set of electrodes by not removing them. Sometimes 3 day recordings gives more useful information. Just take out the battery then the SD card from Holter Recorder without disconnecting other things. I did for 3 days and quality of ECG on third day was as good as the first day, as electrodes didn’t dry out. IMPORTANT: Remove the SD card and analyze data on ‘Wellue AI-ECG Analysis System’ before starting the next 24-hour recording and replace battery with a new one, as one is enough for just one 24-hour recording. Can it be improved further? Yes, and most are software related and one (image 6) hardware. - ‘Event Marker’. At present, it serves no useful purpose as you cannot locate the event marked in the software easily. See event mark in image 2. An event marker tab is needed in the ‘view ECG’ screen. By the way, left panel has a link to ECG of all the arrhythmias the software has identified. Click on ‘►’ next to events on left of screen. The arrow turns downward and if you click it will take to page where the specified arrhythmia seen. At the bottom of the screen click on ‘▼’arrow next to ‘Lead V1’ etc to see patterns in other leads. - Adding a scroll bar to the "View ECG" report to move rapidly through the report would make it easier to navigate. - Displaying heart rate in numbers on each page can provide a quick way to assess heart rate. - Consider a design improvement for the battery compartment to reduce the risk of breaking the metal contact. See image 6. Inserting the battery pushes the contact downwards. This may eventually break. I avoid it by holding thin blade to press it back when inserting the battery.

This is an excellent device. My doctor friend was floored that this is available to just buy on Amazon. Back when he practiced, you needed to go to the hospital or a specialised clinic for this. It's not very hard to put the leads in the right spots. The recording device is small and light. The resulting output was acceptable to both my cardiologists. One of them pointed out that Wellue doesn't have all the medical certifications it might need, but as far as he could tell the ECG was as good as anything he's seen and helpful in diagnosis. The important difference with having this, vs getting a similar kit from a clinic/hospital is: - It's a 12-lead, not a 2-lead, like the Holter monitors they usually give you. - You can start and stop it whenever you want, so if you have a problem that comes and goes, you are more likely to catch it. The AI analysis basically produces a report almost identical to the one from the clinic-provided 2-lead ECG, but in full 12-lead detail. It works well, though it occasionally mis-categorises a shift in posture as an ECG event, but that's rare enough not to be a problem. I used it for tracking down and measuring Paroxysmal Atrial Fibrillation, and it was helpful. In particular, when it was happening frequently, I put it on one evening and was able to catch the whole AF episode from start to finish. And now that the Afib is gone, it's been possible to prove to myself and my doctors that it is gone, by providing a 24h recording that shows very few ectopic beats. So, the device has served its purpose so far and I'm glad I bought it, as expensive as it is. Room for improvement would be: - It doesn't last 24h on rechargeable batteries - Should really be USB-rechargeable with a replaceable USB battery for durability, I think... - Can only use it in 12-lead (10 pads) or 8-lead (6 pads) configuration. For more frequent monitoring it would be nice if there was a mode supporting just 2 or 3 contact points, to just check for frequency of PACs rather than get a full detailed reading. Main reason being that wearing so many contact pads is uncomfortable and leaves lots of glue residue.

Obviously an authentic medical device. Even my wife's consultant was impressed. Once proper placement of the electrodes is mastered the equipment isn't difficult to use correctly. Comes with carry pouch and strap. The LCD screen is small but readable and the instructions clear and concise. The computer download is simple to install and navigate and once the recording is uploaded it takes around 30 minutes to receive the AI assessment of your test. You can then print out either the whole thing or a 'highlights' selection should any anomalies be detected.(Your printer, not provided). Put my wife's mind at rest. Not cheap but worth the investment.

This provides continuous traces from all leads. There does not appear to be a way of printing out a straight forward 12 lead ecg on a single piece of A4

First Class

I bought this for the compactness and 12-lead, 24-hr monitoring. It was fairly easy to use following instructions. A detailed review elsewhere describes the workings. There were no issues with the leads or electrodes staying put and were removed after the 24hrs. The instructions state the machine will beep if there are any issues however this did not occur. Downloading occurs via the card reader which comes ready installed in the machine in a slot within the battery compartment. There is a warning in the instructions advising users to ensure that the switch on the card reader is at the 'on' position before recording starts (otherwise no data will be captured - I had to google what this meant and where the on/ off switch was as i'd never used a card reader). In the event , the card reader was already at the 'on' position ready for recording. The data on the card reader is automatically wiped when a new ECG recording starts therefore good practice to download after any recording however short. A small multi-port device is included in the pack for inserting the SD card into prior to plugging into the computer (via the USB port; or other given ports depending on the device )before downloading. I mention this as the SD card won't work if directly inserted into the laptop as i found. Once inserted, a link for downloading the AI-ECG system or the app appears , which worked immediately there was no lag. When opened, There is a taskbar with tabs at the top of the screen from which you can select function required- e.g, view ECG ( which downloads) or begin analysis tab (you have to log in /register for analysis function). The link to register prior accessing analysis was not working for several days but eventually this worked yesterday and then I was able to request the AI analysis report. The ECG was well over 400pages but downloaded fairly quickly and can be saved as PDF from the tabs on the taskbar. The ECG was at least 90% pages of 'mess', due to interference and the only stable traces were those taken when still, eg, sitting, standing, sleeping. This was from normal activity- I had taken care not to but not to exercise, lift weights, do arm swings, etc to avoid artefacts to no avail. Even bending down, going up/ downstairs stairs, getting out of bed- produced artefact. Hence, after seeing the 24hr ECG trace I, i thought that was it and that there was no point requesting analysis but which i did anyhow to complete the process. The analysis takes a while, about 30minutes a reading the screen stated and that it would inform when ready. Somehow, and with no fanfare, the AI ECG analysis managed to come up with a very normal and civilised looking report from the wreck of the 24hr ECG ....like it was the most natural thing in the world and all in a days' work. So there it is, I was shocked beyond measure and concluded this is either an extremely advanced A1-analysis system or an extremely inaccurate, off the mark system. I'm still not sure which. It even managed to come up with respectable single ECGs pooled from the 24hr recording to represent the maximum and minimum heart rates and PAC waveforms included in the report . Astounding! I don't know if all 24hr ECGs have such gross interferences or whether cardio electrophysiologist look at the traces in addition to AI systems, however I'm convinced mine would have been classed as ''uninterpretable'' . Repeat . Conclusion If the AI report is accurate then its an outstanding little machine and well worth buying just for its ability to generate an accurate report despite the worst case of ECG artefacts. However, if this machine has been overzealous with the analysis I would stay well clear. I don't think even a cardiologist could have made head or tails of the ECG. The machine is not licensed as a medical device hence caution may need to be exercised, however given the manufacturer's extensive experience in mini ECG devices ( some of which i have used with great satisfaction), I'm inclined to optimism with this device and future improvements. Additional I think the leads may not be long enough to accomodate very large or tall persons as they felt a bit tuggy in places ( I'm 5' 4'' ) however they remained in place. Alternatively they may suggest alternative placements in these scenarios. UPDATE 21/01/24; 1.Poor customer support, even from seller and their website, they don't get back to you unless a sale is pending. 2. Cheaper to buy from their website, I received within days. However, post purchase support was poor and Paypal refunded me as they did not respond. 3. Viatom tec, which makes these devices are aligned with Wellue are imminently due to release a new holter, a 'Wireless Dynamic Multi-Parameter Holter' therefore it may explain the price crash of this item. Viatom had been waiting for final checks including CE certification. Documentation of the wireless device is on their website though not pricing as yet. Therefore it may be worth holding off until this new device is released. The checks were December. 4. I topped using the holter device after the cardiologist described everything as noise, even the offerings i'd initially been impressed with. Hence i don't use this. Its only stable if you are still but when mobile there is 'noise'. Additionally, there has been a number of episodes when the machine did not record for a few hours overnight, leaving blank page or page with line. This only found out after reviewing the raw data piecemeal. However, will not be apparent if just check the report. 5. As noted elsewhere, it cannot produce a 12-lead view in one page only on the report. I fed back to Wellue re: if this function could be enabled, etc but no response , including for any other issues and blanks in recording.