A Wearable Sensor for Unobtrusive, Long-Term Assessment of Electrodermal Activity

Abstract

Abstract-Electrodermal activity (EDA) is a sensitive index of sympathetic nervous system activity. Due to the lack of sensors that can be worn comfortably during normal daily activity and over extensive periods of time, research in this area is limited to laboratory settings or artificial clinical environments. We developed a novel, unobtrusive, nonstigmatizing, wrist-worn integrated sensor, and present, for the very first time, a demonstration of longterm, continuous assessment of EDA outside of a laboratory setting. We evaluated the performance of our device against a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved system for the measurement of EDA during physical, cognitive, as well as emotional stressors at both palmar and distal forearm sites, and found high correlations across all the tests. We also evaluated the choice of electrode material by comparing conductive fabric with Ag/AgCl electrodes and discuss the limitations found. An important result presented in this paper is evidence that the distal forearm is a viable alternative to the traditional palmar sites for EDA measurements. Our device offers the unprecedented ability to perform comfortable, long-term, and in situ assessment of EDA. This paper opens up opportunities for future investigations that were previously not feasible, and could have far-reaching implications for diagnosis and understanding of psychological or neurological conditions.

Determination of stress using Blood Pressure and Galvanic Skin Response

“…Stress can be positive i.e. it motivates us, helps in learning new things, achieving daily tasks and engage in creative thinking [1] thinking and functioning on a daily basis. Large amount of stress may cause emotional imbalance and lead to cardiovascular diseases in severe cases.…”

Brief Report: A Pilot Study of Parent–Child Biobehavioral Synchrony in Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…Electrodermal Activity (EDA) EDA was recorded in microsiemens at 8 Hz using wireless Affectiva Q-Sensors Poh et al 2010;Sano et al 2014) worn by each parent and child. The sensors utilized Ag/AgCl dry disc electrodes and data were recorded and stored within the wrist sensor itself, and downloaded for later analysis.…”

“…The sensors utilized Ag/AgCl dry disc electrodes and data were recorded and stored within the wrist sensor itself, and downloaded for later analysis. Although measurement from the wrist is less standard and may result in decreased sensitivity to small changes in EDA as compared to certain other locations ( Van Dooren et al 2012), evidence suggests reliability of wrist data with traditional measurement locations, and that wrist measurement may actually be more sensitive to EDA under certain circumstances (Poh et al 2010;Sano et al 2014;Van Dooren et al 2012). In addition to logging EDA, the sensors also recorded movement across three dimensions using a triaxis accelerometer.…”

Vasomotor Symptoms Monitoring with a Commercial Activity Tracking Watch

“…Insights into understanding and treating vasomotor symptoms will be greatly advanced by these longitudinal studies, as the different causes of vasomotor symptoms may vary in intensities and durations. EDA is also reported as a sensitive index of sympathetic nervous system activity 5 . In addition, commercial devices with EDA .…”