Towards long term monitoring of electrodermal activity in daily life

Abstract

Manic depression, also known as bipolar disorder, is a common and severe form of mental disorder. The European research project MONARCA aims at developing and validating mobile technologies for multiparametric, long term monitoring of physiological and behavioral information relevant to bipolar disorder. One aspect of MONARCA is to investigate the long term monitoring of Electrodermal activity (EDA) to support the diagnosis and treatment of bipolar disorder patients. EDA is known as an indicator of the emotional state and the stress level of a person. To realize a long-term monitoring of the EDA, the integration of the sensor system in the shoe or sock is a promising approach. This paper presents a first step towards such a sensor system. In a feasibility study including 8 subjects, we investigate the correlation between EDA measurements at the fingers, which is the most established sensing site, with measurements of the EDA at the feet. The results indicate that 88% of the evoked skin conductance responses (SCRs) occur at both sensing sites. When using an action movie as psychophysiologically activating stimulus, we have found weaker reactivity in the foot than in the hand EDA. The results also suggest that the influence of moderate physical activity on EDA measurements is low and has a similar effect for both recording sites. This suggests that the foot recording location is suitable for recordings in daily life even in the presence of moderate movement.

UbiComp for animal welfare

“…Biometric clothing unobtrusively monitors our health [6] and emotional changes projecting them on the fabrics that envelop our bodies [3]. Wearable EEG technology [14] recognises our mental states thus enabling us to control our surroundings. Could such technological capabilities be used to improve the quality of life in animals living in the confines of built environments?…”

Long Term Biosignals Visualization and Processing

“…In patients with neuromuscular diseases, the heart rate variability, respiration, muscular and electrodermal activity signals are extremely important, since they indicate when a muscular crisis is occurring. The electrodermal activity signals are also very important when monitoring epilepsy patients or for the diagnosis of bipolar disorders, since the nervous system is a major intervenient in this cases (Poh et al, 2010), (Kappeler-Setz et al, 2010). In a future perspective, the continuous monitoring of these signals would allow the health care providers to know beforehand when the patient needs assistance, assuring the patients' comfort and safety while they are continuously and remotely monitored in an ambient assisted living conditions .…”

A Multimodal Perception Framework for Users Emotional State Assessment in Social Robotics

“…The physiological signals selected were Electro Dermal Activity (EDA) and Inter-Beat Interval (IBI). The EDA signal have been widely used in literature for the assessment of human emotion [43][44][45], and classically is measured in the fingers site [46]. The IBI signal, representing the time in millisecond between two consecutive R waves of the electrocardiography (ECG), is an important parameter for the study of ECG correlates, like heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV), and is usually acquired with disposable Ag/AgCl electrodes placed in the torax area [47].…”