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Scientists Develop Ways of Detecting Heart Attack German researchers have 1 a new generation of defibrillators and early-warning software aimed at offering heart patients greater protection 2 sudden death from cardiac arrest. In Germany alone around 100,000 people die annually as a result of cardiac arrest and many of these cases 3 by disruption to the hearts rhythm. Those most at risk are patients who have 4 suffered a heart attack, and for years the use of defibrillators has proved useful in intervening within seconds. These devices 6 a range of functions, such as that of pacemaker. Heart specialists at Freiburgs University Clinic have now achieved a breakthrough with an implanted defibrillator 7 of generating a six-channel electrocardiogram within the body. This integrated system allows early diagnosis of 8 blood-flow problems and a pending heart attack. It will be implanted in patients for the first time this year. Meanwhile, researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Mathematics in Kaiserslautern have developed new computer software that renders of ECG data 9 . The overwhelming 10 of patients at risk will not have an implanted defibrillator and must for this reason undergo regular ECGs. Many of the current programs only 11 into account a linear correlation of the data. We are, however, making use 12 a non-linear process that reveals the chaotic patterns of heart beats as an open and complex system, Hagen Knaf says,13 changes in the heart beats over time can be monitored and individual variations in patients taken into account. An old study of ECG data, based 14 600 patients who had suffered a subsequent heart attack, enabled the researchers to compare risks and to show 15 the new software evaluates the data considerably better. | 
