Electrocardiography (ECG) is an essential technique for analyzing and monitoring cardiovascular physiological conditions such as arrhythmia. This article demonstrates the integration of screen-printed ECG circuitry from a commercially available conducting polymer, PEDOT:PSS, onto commercially available finished textiles. ECG signals were recorded in dry skin conditions due to the ability of PEDOT:PSS to function as both ionic and electronic conductors. The signal amplifies when the skin transpires water vapor or by applying a common lotion on the skin. Finally, PEDOT:PSS wires connected to PEDOT:PSS electrodes have been shown to record ECG signals comparable to Ag/AgCl connected to copper wires.

Some smartphones have the capability to process video streams from both the front- and rear-facing cameras simultaneously. This paper proposes a new monitoring method for simultaneous estimation of heart and breathing rates using dual cameras of a smartphone. The proposed approach estimates heart rates using a rear-facing camera, while at the same time breathing rates are estimated using a non-contact front-facing camera. For heart rate estimation, a simple application protocol is used to analyze the varying color signals of a fingertip placed in contact with the rear camera. The breathing rate is estimated from non-contact video recordings from both chest and abdominal motions. Reference breathing rates were measured by a respiration belt placed around the chest and abdomen of a subject; reference heart rates (HR) were determined using the standard electrocardiogram. An automated selection of either the chest or abdominal video signal was determined by choosing the signal with a greater autocorrelation value. The breathing rate was then determined by selecting the dominant peak in the power spectrum. To evaluate the performance of the proposed methods, data were collected from 11 healthy subjects. The breathing ranges spanned both low and high frequencies (6–60 breaths/min), and the results show that the average median errors from the reflectance imaging on the chest and the abdominal walls based on choosing the maximum spectral peak were 1.43% and 1.62%, respectively. Similarly, HR estimates were also found to be accurate.

The electrodermal activity (EDA) is a useful tool for assessing skin sympathetic nervous activity. Using spectral analysis of EDA data at rest, we have previously found that the spectral band which is the most sensitive to central sympathetic control is largely confined to 0.045 to 0.25 Hz. However, the frequency band associated with sympathetic control in EDA has not been studied for exercise conditions. Establishing the band limits more precisely is important to ensure the accuracy and sensitivity of the technique. As exercise intensity increases, it is intuitive that the frequencies associated with the autonomic dynamics should also increase accordingly. Hence, the aim of this study was to examine the appropriate frequency band associated with the sympathetic nervous system in the EDA signal during exercise. Eighteen healthy subjects underwent a sub-maximal exercise test, including a resting period, walking, and running, until achieving 85% of maximum heart rate. Both EDA and ECG data were measured simultaneously for all subjects. The ECG was used to monitor subjects’ instantaneous heart rate, which was used to set the experiment’s end point. We found that the upper bound of the frequency band (Fmax) containing the EDA spectral power significantly shifted to higher frequencies when subjects underwent prolonged low-intensity (Fmax ~ 0.28) and vigorous-intensity exercise (Fmax ~ 0.37 Hz) when compared to the resting condition. In summary, we have found shifting of the sympathetic dynamics to higher frequencies in the EDA signal when subjects undergo physical activity.

A wearable armband electrocardiogram (ECG) monitor has been used for daily life monitoring. The armband records three ECG channels, one electromyogram (EMG) channel, and tri-axial accelerometer signals. Contrary to conventional Holter monitors, the armband-based ECG device is convenient for long-term daily life monitoring because it uses no obstructive leads and has dry electrodes (no hydrogels), which do not cause skin irritation even after a few days. Principal component analysis (PCA) and normalized least mean squares (NLMS) adaptive filtering were used to reduce the EMG noise from the ECG channels. An artifact detector and an optimal channel selector were developed based on a support vector machine (SVM) classifier with a radial basis function (RBF) kernel using features that are related to the ECG signal quality. Mean HR was estimated from the 24-hour armband recordings from 16 volunteers in segments of 10 seconds each. In addition, four classical HR variability (HRV) parameters (SDNN, RMSSD, and powers at low and high frequency bands) were computed. For comparison purposes, the same parameters were estimated also for data from a commercial Holter monitor. The armband provided usable data (difference less than 10% from Holterestimated mean HR) during 75.25%/11.02% (inter-subject median/interquartile range) of segments when the user was not in bed, and during 98.49%/0.79% of the bed segments. The automatic artifact detector found 53.85%/17.09% of the data to be usable during the non-bed time, and 95.00%/2.35% to be usable during the time in bed. The HRV analysis obtained a relative error with respect to the Holter data not higher than 1.37% (intersubject median/interquartile range). Although further studies have to be conducted for specific applications, results suggest that the armband device has a good potential for daily life HR monitoring, especially for applications such as arrhythmia or seizure detection, stress assessment, or sleep studies.

Two parameters that a breathing status monitor should provide include tidal volume ( V) and respiration rate (RR). Recently, we implemented an optical monitoring approach that tracks chest wall movements directly on a smartphone. In this paper, we explore the use of such noncontact optical monitoring to obtain a volumetric surrogate signal, via analysis of intensity changes in the video channels caused by the chest wall movements during breathing, in order to provide not only average RR but also information about V and to track RR at each time instant (IRR). The algorithm, implemented on an Android smartphone, is used to analyze the video information from the smartphone's camera and provide in real time the chest movement signal from N = 15 healthy volunteers, each breathing at V ranging from 300 mL to 3 L. These measurements are performed separately for each volunteer. Simultaneous recording of volume signals from a spirometer is regarded as reference. A highly linear relationship between peak-to-peak amplitude of the smartphone-acquired chest movement signal and spirometer V is found ( r = 0.951 ±0.042, mean ± SD). After calibration on a subject-by-subject basis, no statistically significant bias is found in terms of V estimation; the 95% limits of agreement are -0.348 to 0.376 L, and the root-mean-square error (RMSE) was 0.182 ±0.107 L. In terms of IRR estimation, a highly linear relation between smartphone estimates and the spirometer reference was found ( r = 0.999 ±0.002). The bias, 95% limits of agreement, and RMSE are -0.024 breaths-per-minute (bpm), -0.850 to 0.802 bpm, and 0.414 ±0.178 bpm, respectively. These promising results show the feasibility of developing an inexpensive and portable breathing monitor, which could provide information about IRR as well as V, when calibrated on an individual basis, using smartphones. Further studies are required to enable practical implementation of the proposed approach.