Physiological Monitoring System Research Articles

Channel modeling and power consumption analysis for galvanic coupling intra-body communication

Intra-body communication (IBC), using the human body as the channel to transmit data, has lower power consumption, less radiation, and easier linking than common wireless communication technologies such as Bluetooth, ZigBee, and ANT+. As a result, IBC is greatly suitable for body area network (BAN) applications, such as the medical and health care field. Furthermore, IBC can be implemented in wearable devices, including smart watches, sports bracelets, somatic game devices, and multimedia devices. However, due to the limited battery capacity of sensor nodes in a BAN, especially implanted sensor nodes, it is not convenient to charge or change the batteries. Thus, the energy effectiveness of the media access control (MAC) layer strongly affects the life span of the nodes and of the entire system. Certainly, analyzing MAC layer performance in a galvanic coupling IBC is of great importance for the overall system. To obtain the attenuation properties of IBC, in vivo experiments with seven volunteers were performed. Meanwhile, an equalizer was used to compensate the frequency distortion in consideration of frequency-selective fading characteristics of intra-body channels. In addition, a comparison of the bit error rates (BER) of different modulation methods was carried out to obtain the best modulation method. Then, the attenuation characteristics of intra-body channels were applied in a multi-node physiological signal monitor and transmission system. Finally, TDMA and CSMA/CA protocols were introduced to calculate the bit energy consumption of IBC in the practical scenario. With stable characteristics of the intra-body channels, QPSK with an equalizer had a better performance than the tests without an equalizer. As a result, the modulation method of FSK could achieve a lower BER in lower signal-to-noise ratio situations and an FSK method with TDMA for the IBC had the lowest energy consumption under different practical scenarios.

Physiological parameters monitoring of fire-fighters by means of a wearable wireless sensor system

Physiological parameter monitoring may be useful in many different groups of the population, such as infants, elderly people, athletes, soldiers, drivers, fire-fighters, police etc. This can provide a variety of information ranging from health status to operational readiness. In this article, we focus on the case of first responders and specifically fire-fighters. Firefighters can benefit from a physiological monitoring system that is used to extract multiple indications such as the present position, the possible life risk level, the stress level etc. This work presents a wearable wireless sensor network node, based on low cost, commercial-off- the-self (COTS) electronic modules, which can be easily attached on a standard fire-fighters’ uniform. Due to the low frequency wired interface between the selected electronic components, the proposed solution can be used as a basis for a textile system where all wired connections will be implemented by means of conductive yarn routing in the textile structure, while some of the standard sensors can be replaced by textile ones. System architecture is described in detail, while indicative samples of acquired signals are also presented.

Study of Real-Time Cardiac Monitoring System

Today's healthcare technology provides promising solutions to cater to the needs of patients. The development of wearable physiological monitoring system has reached home-centric patients by ensuring faster healthcare services. The primary advantage of this system is activation of alarms to alert the specialist in a nearby hospital to attend to any sort of emergency. Specifically, cardiac-related problems need special attention when a 24-hour Holter monitors ECG signals and identifies the level of abnormalities under various circumstances. Although several brands of Holters exist in market, there is a huge demand for digitized Holter recorders. These recorders can simultaneously analyse cardiac signals in real time mode and store the data and reuse them for next 24 hours. As home-centric based wearable cardiac monitoring system gains much attention recently, there is a need to design and develop a cardiac monitoring system by establishing a trade-off between the required clinical diagnostic quality and cost. This research study highlights a comprehensive survey of various cardiac monitoring systems under wire, wireless and wearable modes. This provides an insight into the need of the hour in bringing a cost-effective wearable system. The study provides an insight of the technological aspects of the existing cardiac monitoring system and suggests a viable design suitable for developing countries.

An intelligent health monitoring system using radio-frequency identification technology.

Long-term care (LTC) for the elderly has become extremely important in recent years. It is necessary for the different physiological monitoring systems to be integrated on the same interface to help oversee and manage the elderly's needs. This paper presents a novel health monitoring system for LTC services using radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology. Dual-band RFID protocols were included in the system, in which the high-frequency (HF) band of 13.56 MHz was used to identify individuals and the microwave band of 2.45 GHz was used to monitor physiological information. Distinct physiological data, including oxyhemoglobin saturation by pulse oximetry (SpO2), blood pressure, blood sugar, electrocardiogram (ECG) readings, body temperature, and respiration rate, were monitored by various biosensors. The intelligent RFID health monitoring system provided the features of the real-time acquisition of biomedical signals and the identification of personal information pertaining to the elderly and patients in nursing homes.

Assessment of Biofeedback Training for Emotion Management Through Wearable Textile Physiological Monitoring System

Negative emotion has a wide range of pernicious impacts on people, ranging from the failure in real-time task performance to the development of chronic health conditions. An unobtrusive wearable biofeedback system for personalized emotional management has been designed and presented in this paper. The system integrated heart rate variability (HRV) biofeedback to wearable biosensor platform, which could function both as an early stress warning system as well as a visual interface to manipulate subject's affective state. The designed and developed system would help subject to transform the negative emotion state into positive through real-time HRV biofeedback training. The results indicated that the real-time HRV biofeedback is significantly effective in cases of negative emotion. With the aid of the developed biofeedback system, the subhealth subjects could transform heart rhythm from negative emotion to positive emotion-related oscillation mode.

Is 50 Hz high enough ECG sampling frequency for accurate HRV analysis?

With the worldwide growth of mobile wireless technologies, healthcare services can be provided at anytime and anywhere. Usage of wearable wireless physiological monitoring system has been extensively increasing during the last decade. These mobile devices can continuously measure e.g. the heart activity and wirelessly transfer the data to the mobile phone of the patient. One of the significant restrictions for these devices is usage of energy, which leads to requiring low sampling rate. This article is presented in order to investigate the lowest adequate sampling frequency of ECG signal, for achieving accurate enough time domain heart rate variability (HRV) parameters. For this purpose the ECG signals originally measured with high 5 kHz sampling rate were down-sampled to simulate the measurement with lower sampling rate. Down-sampling loses information, decreases temporal accuracy, which was then restored by interpolating the signals to their original sampling rates. The HRV parameters obtained from the ECG signals with lower sampling rates were compared. The results represent that even when the sampling rate of ECG signal is equal to 50 Hz, the HRV parameters are almost accurate with a reasonable error.

Good Night: Sleep Monitoring Using a Physiological Radar Monitoring System Integrated with a Polysomnography System

This article presents results from the integration of a noncontact physiological radar monitoring system (PRMS) with a type I polysomnography (PSG) system to perform sleep monitoring. The PRMS system consists of two continuous-wave Doppler radars operating at the industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) band of 2.45 GHz. The system can acquire data, perform digital processing, and output appropriate conventional analog outputs with a latency of approximately 130 ms, which can be recorded and displayed by a gold standard sleep monitoring system along with other standard sensor measurements. Radar data was also used to successfully detect paradoxical motion that was simulated using linear movers and to categorize normal breathing, apnea, and hypopnea in sleeping subjects with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA).

The technological future of 7 T MRI hardware.

In this article we present our projections of future hardware developments on 7 T human MRI systems. These include compact cryogen-light magnets, improved gradient performance, integrated RF-receive and direct current shimming coil arrays, new RF technology with adaptive impedance matching, patient-specific specific absorption rate estimation and monitoring, and increased integration of physiological monitoring systems. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Hemodynamic monitoring of large animal chronic studies after median sternotomy: experiences with different telemetric physiological devices.

Telemetric physiological monitoring systems (TPMS) have enabled accurate continuous measurement of animal blood pressures and flows. However, few studies describe approaches for use of TPMS in the great vessels or inside the heart. We describe our initial experiences using two types of TPMSs. Twelve lambs (20-37 kg) underwent sternotomy. Two lambs were not instrumented and were killed at 14 days to confirm normal sternal wound healing (sham group, n = 2). Ten lambs underwent placement of either standard indwelling pressure-monitoring catheter and perivascular-flow-probe (CFP group, n = 3) or TPMS implantation (TPMS group, n = 7). The TPMS used were EG1-V3S2T-M2 (EG1, n = 5; Transonic Endogear Inc.) and Physio Tel Digital L21 (PTD, n = 2; Data Sciences Inc.). Two deaths because of respiratory problems occurred in TPMS group, attributed to lung compression by the implanted device. In TPMS group, more consistent trends of blood pressures and flows were recorded, and management of animals was easier and less labor-intensive. Comparing the two TPMSs, the initiation and renewal costs for each case was $28 K vs. $20 K and $1,700 vs. $0, (PTD versus EG1, respectively). In conclusion, TPMS implantation was feasible via median sternotomy in lambs. Telemetric physiological monitoring systems significantly improve reliability of hemodynamic monitoring in chronic survival animal study. EG1 was less costly than PTD.

Features and application of wearable biosensors in medical care.

One of the new technologies in the field of health is wearable biosensor, which provides vital signs monitoring of patients, athletes, premature infants, children, psychiatric patients, people who need long-term care, elderly, and people in impassable regions far from health and medical services. The aim of this study was to explain features and applications of wearable biosensors in medical services. This was a narrative review study that done in 2015. Search conducted with the help of libraries, books, conference proceedings, through databases of Science Direct, PubMed, Proquest, Springer, and SID (Scientific Information Database). In our searches, we employed the following keywords and their combinations; vital sign monitoring, medical smart shirt, smart clothing, wearable biosensors, physiological monitoring system, remote detection systems, remote control health, and bio-monitoring system. The preliminary search resulted in 54 articles, which published between 2002 and 2015. After a careful analysis of the content of each paper, 41 sources selected based on their relevancy. Although the use of wearable in healthcare is still in an infant stage, it could have a magic effect on healthcare. Smart wearable in the technology industry for 2015 is one that is looking to be a big and profitable market. Wearable biosensors capable of continuous vital signs monitoring and feedback to the user will be significantly effective in timely prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and control of diseases.

A preliminary study of muscular artifact cancellation in single-channel EEG.

Electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings are often contaminated with muscular artifacts that strongly obscure the EEG signals and complicates their analysis. For the conventional case, where the EEG recordings are obtained simultaneously over many EEG channels, there exists a considerable range of methods for removing muscular artifacts. In recent years, there has been an increasing trend to use EEG information in ambulatory healthcare and related physiological signal monitoring systems. For practical reasons, a single EEG channel system must be used in these situations. Unfortunately, there exist few studies for muscular artifact cancellation in single-channel EEG recordings. To address this issue, in this preliminary study, we propose a simple, yet effective, method to achieve the muscular artifact cancellation for the single-channel EEG case. This method is a combination of the ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) and the joint blind source separation (JBSS) techniques. We also conduct a study that compares and investigates all possible single-channel solutions and demonstrate the performance of these methods using numerical simulations and real-life applications. The proposed method is shown to significantly outperform all other methods. It can successfully remove muscular artifacts without altering the underlying EEG activity. It is thus a promising tool for use in ambulatory healthcare systems.

Development of a Wearable Biosensor System for Ubiquitous Healthcare Applications

With the development of wearable computing, wireless communication and artificial intelligence technology, the physiological monitoring systems for homecare applications achieved more and more attention. It is a challenge to design a fully integrated circuit satisfying the requirements of wearable biosensor system, such as small size, low power consumption, wireless transmission, and high signal noise rate (SNR). Based on these considerations, we recently developed a fully-integrated circuit for a wearable biosensor system to measure multiple vital signs in real time, meanwhile, we adopted FIR notch filter to remove the 50Hz power line interference and used cubic spline interpolation to reduce baseline drift noise. The experimental results showed that this wearable system ran well, which could be applied for real-time and ubiquitous healthcare in daily life.

The Design of Wearable Exercise Monitoring System

For the issues of expensive price, cumbersome operations and bad portability, we designed a wireless, wearable and multi-parameter exercise physiological monitoring system with low mental loads. This system could perform the real-time, continuous and long-term monitoring for the parameters of ECG, respiration, body temperature and body movement of the person under monitoring in the motion state to realize wireless transmission of data. The test result showed that the operation of system is stable, safe and reliable to monitor the physiological status of the testee on a precise, real-time and ongoing basis.

Mobile Nurse Information System with Efficient Physiological Monitoring for Patient

Current traditional physiological monitoring is accomplished by individual cardiogram monitor device attached to each patient’s bed. A nurse will have to frequently monitor the vital signs at patient’s bedside, which is inefficient and time consuming. Although some hospitals have deployed the central monitoring system, it still has space limit to the nurses and high cost. Our research work is to develop a mobile nurse information system with efficient physiological monitoring for patient based on iPad. Patient’s real-time physiological signals captured by the physiological monitoring system are integrated to the mobile nurse information system. Nurses could get just-in-time access to the data of the physiological monitoring system at anywhere through the clinical use of the mobile nurse information system. Trial version in our hospital showed that the system is feasible and efficient enough to apply in clinical settings.

Information Technology in Human Physiological Signal Monitor System Based on Atmega328

This paper introduces a human physiological signal monitor system based on Atmega328. Heart sounds and electrocardiogram of the human body can not only be acquired and processed timely but also stored and displayed. It is composed of superior microprocessor—Atmega328,large capacity flash and the new type LCD, which adopt low power design and surface mounting package. The advantage of the system is compact and high intelligence. A model for automatic arithmetic is established for the feature extraction of human physiological signal. This system can record human physiological information in succession for 56 hours and store the no compression data synchronously. Many diseases can be diagnosed according to the system automatically. The measurement results achieved from this system are dependable, so the diagnosing results are accurate and the waveforms are no distortion. This system used necessary doesn’t affect the daily living and working, so it is suited for clinical and family monitoring.

G88 HISTORY and Clinical assessment versus Polysomnography for diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnoea?

AimsObstructive sleep apnoea syndrome (OSAS) is a common respiratory disorder of childhood, affecting 1–3% of normal children, rising to 13% in the morbidly obese and has even higher prevalence in...

Physiological Monitoring and Analysis of a Manned Stratospheric Balloon Test Program

The Red Bull Stratos Project consisted of incremental high altitude parachute jumps [maximum altitude 127,852 ft (38,969 m)] from a pressurized capsule suspended from a stratospheric helium-filled balloon. A physiological monitoring system was worn by the parachutist to provide operational medical and acceleration data and to record a unique set of data in a supersonic environment. Various physiological parameters, including heart rate (HR), respiratory rate (RR), skin temperature, and triaxial acceleration, were collected during the ascent, high altitude float, free fall, and parachute opening and descent stages of multiple low- and high altitude jumps. Physiologic data were synchronized with global positioning system (GPS) and audiovisual data for a comprehensive understanding of the environmental stressors experienced. HR reached maximum during capsule egress and remained elevated throughout free fall and landing. RR reached its maximum during free fall. Temperature data were unreliable and did not provide useful results. The highest accelerations parameters were recorded during parachute opening and during landing. During each high altitude jump, immediately after capsule egress, the parachutist experienced a few seconds of microgravity during which some instability occurred. Control was regained as the parachutist entered denser atmosphere. The high altitude environment resulted in extremely high vertical speeds due to little air resistance in comparison to lower altitude jumps with similar equipment. The risk for tumbling was highest at initial step-off. Physiological responses included elevated HR and RR throughout critical phases of free fall. The monitoring unit performed well despite the austere environment and extreme human performance activities.

International emergency medicine: Past and future

Much has been written about the development of emergency medicine (EM) and its impact on the medical system as a whole. It is still described as ‘new’ and very much seen as a specialty that is evolving, rather than a static domain of knowledge and skills with rigid boundaries. In reality, the fundamentals of emergency treatment in mitigating the effects of acute illness and injury go back to ancient times. This is evidenced by descriptions of the urgent management of acute pain with analgesics, splinting of injured limbs, and more sophisticated procedures, such as the removal of kidney stones and craniotomies. The treatments at that time were limited, but the application of these skills brought relief to many people (and a little pain). The practitioners were generalists and did not limit themselves to emergency treatment alone. Over the past half-century, there has been an acceleration of development in emergency medical treatments and a massive explosion in emergency medical system enhancement. This has resulted in a unique body of knowledge and skills, with the evolution of a new medical specialty specific to the delivery of emergency medical care. It is worth reflecting on the drivers for EM specialisation, where the specialty has come from, and what we can expect as the complexity of medical care increases with technological innovation and social changes associated with increasing connectivity.

Healthcare cybersecurity risk management: keys to an effective plan.

Healthcare cybersecurity risk management: keys to an effective plan.

Non-contact physiological signal detection using continuous wave Doppler radar

The aim of this work is to show non-contact physiological signal monitoring system based on continuous-wave (CW) Doppler radar, which is becoming highly attractive in the field of health care monitoring of elderly people. Two radar signal processing methods were introduced in this paper: one to extract respiration and heart rates of a single person and the other to separate mixed respiration signals. To verify the validity of the methods, physiological signal is obtained from stationary human subjects using a CW Doppler radar unit. The sensor operating at 24 GHz is located 0.5 meter away from the subject. The simulation results show that the respiration and heart rates are clearly extracted, and the mixed respiration signals are successfully separated. Finally, reference respiration and heart rate signals are measured by an ECG monitor and compared with the results tracked by the CW Doppler radar monitoring system.