Review of sensors for remote patient monitoring

Remote patient monitoring (RPM) of physiological measurements can provide an efficient method and high quality care to patients. The physiological signals measurement is the initial and the most important factor in RPM. This paper discusses the characteristics of the most popular sensors, which are used to obtain vital clinical signals in prevalent RPM systems. The sensors discussed in this paper are used to measure ECG, heart sound, pulse rate, oxygen saturation, blood pressure and respiration rate, which are treated as the most important vital data in patient monitoring and medical examination

Experiments of posture estimation on vehicles using wearable acceleration sensors

In this paper, we study methods to estimate drivers' posture in vehicles using acceleration data of wearable sensor and conduct a field test. Recently, sensor technologies have been progressed. Solutions of safety management to analyze vital data acquired from wearable sensor and judge work status are proposed. To prevent huge accidents, demands for safety management of bus and taxi are high. However, acceleration of vehicles is added to wearable sensor in vehicles, and there is no guarantee to estimate drivers' posture accurately. Therefore, in this paper, we study methods to estimate driving posture using acceleration data acquired from T-shirt type wearable sensor hitoe, conduct field tests and implement a sample application.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, The 3rd IEEE International Conference on Big Data Security on Cloud (BigDataSecurity 2017), pp.14-17, Beijing, May 201

The role of electrocardiography in occupational medicine, from einthoven’s invention to the digital era of wearable devices

Clinical-instrumental investigations, such as electrocardiography (ECG), represent a corollary of a procedures that, nowadays, is called upon as part of the principles of precision medicine. However when carrying out the professional routine examinations, most tend to ignore how a “simple” instrument can offer indispensable support in clinical practice, even in occupational medicine. The advent of the digital age, made of silicon and printed circuit boards, has allowed the miniaturization of the electronic components of these electro-medical devices. Finally, the adoption of patient wearables in medicine has been rapidly expanding worldwide for a number of years. This has been driven mainly by consumers’ demand to monitor their own health. With the ongoing research and development of new features capable of assessing and transmitting real-time biometric data, the impact of wearables on cardiovascular management has become inevitable. Despite the potential offered by this technology, as evident from the scientific literature, the application of these devices in the field of health and safety in the workplace is still limited. This may also be due to the lack of targeted scientific research. While offering great potential, it is very important to consider and evaluate ethical aspects related to the use of these smart devices, such as the management of the collected data relating to the physiological parameters and the location of the worker. This technology is to be considered as being aimed at monitoring the subject’s physiological parameters, and not at the diagnosis of any pathological condition, which should always be on charge of the medical specialist We conducted a review of the evolution of the role that electrophysiology plays as part of occupational health and safety management and on its possible future use, thanks to ongoing technological innovation

LOW COST WIRELESS ECG PATCH USING ESP32

Wearable-and-wireless Electrocardiograph (ECG) has been widely used for long term monitoring due to practical reasons. Besides its high Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR), one of patch benefits is its flexibility for users to place the electrodes. However, most of existing commercial wireless ECG patches displays Heart Rate Variability (HRV) only, without ability to provide or record the ECG waveform. Some of them employ two electrodes only: Right Arm (RA) and Left Arm (LA), without additional electrode called Right Arm Drive (RLD). In addition, It is beneficial to provide more than one wireless technology option for ECG patch. We propose a low cost wireless ECG patch that has ability to provide ECG waveform (Lead I) and calculate HRV automatically. Besides RA and LA, it utilized RLD electrode to increase Common Mode Rejection Ratio (CMRR). For data processing, we employed ESP32, a low-power 32-bit microcontroller equipped with Bluetooth Classic (BT), Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), and Wifi in a compact module. The test results showed that the proposed ECG patch resulted in more accurate HRV calculation as well as 2,7 times faster transition time compared to a commercial product.Elektrokardiograf (ECG) yang bersifat wearable dan nirkabel telah banyak digunakan untuk monitoring jangka panjang karena alasan praktis. Selain Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) yang tinggi, salah satu manfaat ECG dalam bentuk patch adalah fleksibilitasnya bagi pengguna dalam menempatkan elektroda. Sebagian besar ECG patch nirkabel komersial yang ada di pasaran hanya dapat menampilkan Heart Rate Variability (HRV) saja, tanpa kemampuan untuk menyediakan atau merekam gelombang EKG. Beberapa produk komersial menggunakan dua elektroda saja: Right Arm (RA) dan Left Arm (LA), tanpa elektroda tambahan yang disebut Right Arm Drive (RLD). Selain itu, menyediakan lebih dari satu opsi teknologi nirkabel untuk ECG patch merupakan keuntungan tambahan. Pada penelitian ini, kami membuat ECG patch nirkabel berbiaya rendah yang memiliki kemampuan untuk menyediakan bentuk gelombang EKG (Lead I) dan menghitung HRV secara otomatis. Selain RA dan LA, alat ini menggunakan elektroda RLD untuk meningkatkan Common Mode Rejection Ratio (CMRR). Untuk pemrosesan data, kami menggunakan ESP32, mikrokontroler 32-bit berdaya rendah yang dilengkapi dengan Bluetooth Classic (BT), Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), dan Wifi dalam modul yang ringkas. Hasil tes menunjukkan bahwa ECG patch yang dibuat menghasilkan perhitungan HRV yang lebih akurat serta waktu transisi 2,7 kali lebih cepat dibandingkan dengan produk komersial yang kami jadikan referensi

Proposal of Vital Data Analysis Platform using Wearable Sensor

In this paper, we propose a vital data analysis platform which resolves existing problems to utilize vital data for real-time actions. Recently, IoT technologies have been progressed but in the healthcare area, real-time actions based on analyzed vital data are not considered sufficiently yet. The causes are proper use of analyzing methods of stream / micro batch processing and network cost. To resolve existing problems, we propose our vital data analysis platform. Our platform collects vital data of Electrocardiograph and acceleration using an example of wearable vital sensor and analyzes them to extract posture, fatigue and relaxation in smart phones or cloud. Our platform can show analyzed dangerous posture or fatigue level change. We implemented the platform. And we are now preparing a field test.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, 5th IIAE International Conference on Industrial Application Engineering 2017 (ICIAE2017), pp.138-143, Mar. 201

Respiratory and cardiac monitoring at night using a wrist wearable optical system

Sleep monitoring provides valuable insights into the general health of an individual and helps in the diagnostic of sleep-derived illnesses. Polysomnography, is considered the gold standard for such task. However, it is very unwieldy and therefore not suitable for long-term analysis. Here, we present a non-intrusive wearable system that, by using photoplethysmography, it can estimate beat-to-beat intervals, pulse rate, and breathing rate reliably during the night. The performance of the proposed approach was evaluated empirically in the Department of Psychology at the University of Fribourg. Each participant was wearing two smart-bracelets from Ava as well as a complete polysomnographic setup as reference. The resulting mean absolute errors are 17.4 ms (MAPE 1.8%) for the beat-to-beat intervals, 0.13 beats-per-minute (MAPE 0.20%) for the pulse rate, and 0.9 breaths-per-minute (MAPE 6.7%) for the breath rate.Comment: Submitted to the 40th International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC

A wearable heart rate measurement device for children with autism spectrum disorder

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by early impairment in social and communication domains and autonomic nervous system unbalance. This study evaluated heart rate (HR) as a possible indicator of stress response in children with ASD as compared to children with language disorder (LD). Twenty-four patients [mean age = 42.62 months; SD = 8.14 months,12 with ASD (10 M/2F) and 12 with LD (8 M/4F)] underwent clinical [Leiter International Performance Scale-Revised, Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, second edition (ADOS-2)] and physiological evaluation (HR monitoring) during five interactive activities, while wearing an HR measurement device. IQ (ASD:IQ = 103.33 ± 12.85 vs. LD:IQ = 111.00 ± 8.88, p = 0.103) and fluid reasoning on the Leiter-R Scale were within the normal range in all subjects. Increased HR during the third activity (ADOS-2 bubble play) significantly correlated with autistic symptoms (r = 0.415; p = 0.044), while correlations between ADOS-2 total score and HR during the first activity (ADOS-2 free play; r = 0.368; p = 0.077), second activity (Leiter-R figure ground subscale; r = 0.373, p = 0.073), and fifth activity (ADOS-2 anticipation of a routine with objects; r = 0.368; p = 0.076) did not quite reach statistical significance. Applying a linear regression model, we found that the ADOS-2 total score significantly influenced HR variations (p = 0.023). HR monitoring may provide a better understanding of the stress-provoking situations for children with ASD. Furthermore, it could help clinicians detect the impact of the stressful condition on the autistic core and adress treatment strategy

Feasibility Study and Design of a Wearable System-on-a-Chip Pulse Radar for Contactless Cardiopulmonary Monitoring

A new system-on-a-chip radar sensor for next-generation wearable wireless interface applied to the human health care and safeguard is presented. The system overview is provided and the feasibility study of the radar sensor is presented. In detail, the overall system consists of a radar sensor for detecting the heart and breath rates and a low-power IEEE 802.15.4 ZigBee radio interface, which provides a wireless data link with remote data acquisition and control units. In particular, the pulse radar exploits 3.1–10.6 GHz ultra-wideband signals which allow a significant reduction of the transceiver complexity and then of its power consumption. The operating principle of the radar for the cardiopulmonary monitoring is highlighted and the results of the system analysis are reported. Moreover, the results obtained from the building-blocks design, the channel measurement, and the ultra-wideband antenna realization are reported