Stress monitoring using a distributed wireless intelligent sensor system

Abstract

B ecause stress is a leading cause of illness and disease and is so pervasive, there is an inherent need to be able to monitor stress in real time over extended periods. A real-time personal stress monitor would benefit individuals by providing continuous feedback about their stress levels and by helping their physicians to objectively evaluate stress exposure between visits. We are developing personal health monitors based on a wireless body area network (BAN) of intelligent sensors [1]. Individual monitors will be integrated into a distributed wireless system for synchronized monitoring of a group of subjects. This system could be used during the selection process and as part of a psychophysiological evaluation of military members undergoing intense training. We use measures of heart-rate variability (HRV) to quantify stress level prior to and during training as well as to predict stress resistance. This task requires reliable, high-precision instrumentation and synchronized measurements from a group of individuals over prolonged periods (days of training). Our preliminary results indicate that individuals who have better stress tolerance also exhibit significantly different patterns of HRV, both before and during stress exposure. These baseline differences in HRV are predictive of actual military and cognitive neuropsychological test performance scores assessed during and after stress exposure [1], [2]. During our preliminary investigations, we used a stressful component of aviation water survival training, the 9D5 Multi-place Underwater Egress Trainer, as our event for the whole group. The 9D5 is a reasonably realistic representation of a helicopter conducting an emergency landing, turning upside down, and sinking. Trainees report the 9D5 session as the most stressful training event during water survival training.

Experimental Investigation of Subject-Specific On-Body Radio Propagation Channels for Body-Centric Wireless Communications

“…A body-worn base station will receive the medical data measured by the sensors located on/around the human body. Body-centric wireless networks have a range of applications, from the monitoring of patients with chronic diseases and care for the elderly, to general well-being monitoring and performance evaluation in sports [2][3][4][5][6]. The human body is considered as an uninviting and even hostile environment for a wireless signal.…”

Intelligent Humidity Sensor for Wireless Sensor Network Agricultural Application

“…This approach has been employed in the past in other areas like in smart homes, appliances in smart cars, in smart production machines, in biomedical applications [35] like hand vibration measurement [25], stress management [36], in recognizing the tool flank wear state over a range of cutting conditions [17], in robotics etc., but is not used in WSN nodes yet. This approach introduces new challenges (e.g.…”

Real-Time Stress Detection by Means of Physiological Signals

“…Heart Rate variability (HR) has been considered as an earlier stress marker in human body, being widely studied and analyzed. Several authors consider this signal in their reports: Jovanov et al (2003) presented a stress monitoring system based on a distributed wireless architecture implemented on intelligent sensors, recording HR along different positions in individual body by means of sensors located beneath clothes. In additoin, the research provided in Angus et al (2005) Shin et al (2004)).…”

“…On the other hand, Heart Rate (HR) measures the number of heartbeats per unit of time. HR can be obtained at any place on the human body, being an accessible parameter to be easily acquired Choi & Gutierrez-Osuna (2009);Jovanov et al (2003). HR describes the heart activity when the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) attempts to tackle with the human body demands depending on the stimuli received Picard & Healey (2000).…”