A System for Monitoring Children with Suspected Cardiac Arrhythmias - Technical Optimizations and Evaluation

Abstract

Children with cardiac arrhythmias constitute one of the most difficult problems in cardiology both in terms of diagnosis and management. In such cases continuous monitoring of ECG vital signs and environmental conditions can significantly improve the identification of a possible arrhythmia. In this study we present a system which enables the continuous monitoring of children with suspected cardiac arrhythmias. The system is able to carry out real-time acquisition and transmission of ECG signals, and facilitate an alarm scheme able to identify possible arrhythmias so as to notify the on-call doctor and the relatives of the child that an event may be happening. In-house monitoring of a child is performed using a sensor network able to record and transmit ECG and the living conditions, while outside the house, monitoring is performed through a GPRS/UMTS enabled device. The transmitted information can be accessed through a web based platform which facilitates a basic electronic patient record module and continuous display of monitoring information of the patient. This paper presents the technical tests, optimization and hardware changes applied in order to improve the system when used for the in-house monitoring of children.

An mHealth System for Monitoring of Children with Suspected Cardiac Arrhythmias

“…The system will be able to do real-time acquisition and transmission of ECG signals from the patient, and facilitate an alarm scheme able to identify possible arrhythmias so as to notify the on-call doctor and the relatives of the child that an event or something that denotes malfunction is happening. This system is a significant extension over our earlier telemedicine work in real-time ambulatory monitoring systems (Kyriacou et al, 2003), as well as of relevant preliminary publications on this topic (Kyriacou, Pattichis, Hoplaros, Kounoudes, Milis, & Jossif, 2010).…”

“…In this case, a sensor network is installed in the child's house that is used in order to continuously monitor ECG signals from the patient (Kyriacou, Pattichis, Hoplaros, Kounoudes, Milis, & Jossif, 2010;Zheng, Zhang, Wu, & Figure 1. Overall system architecture: (a) Shnayder et al, 2005).…”

Implications of mHealth Service Deployments: A Comparison between Dissimilar European Countries

“…As said, the continuous monitoring of ECG vital signs and environmental conditions can significantly improve the chances of identifying possible arrhythmias. The outcome of this work is the prototype of a system [12] that is specifically designed for children and is able to carry out the acquisition and transmission of ECG signals. The fact that data transmission takes place in real-time allows for the deployment of an alarm-type scheme that assists in the identification of possible arrhythmias by notifying the on-call doctor and the child's relatives when abnormal events take place.…”

A Hospital Healthcare Monitoring System Using Wireless Sensor Networks

“…In the proposed system, the patient's physiological signals are acquired by the sensors attached on the patient body, and are then transmitted to the remote base-station and also a PC for storing and analyzing. According to table 1 [14], in indoor environments, the signal strength of access points can be weakened by 30-90% as it passes through the obstructions (for example, when the two wireless devices or relay nodes are in different rooms, and the door which connects the rooms are closed). With the increasing number of obstructions between the nodes, we can observe more packet loss and more dead spot that will cause a communication disconnection between the patient and the network.…”