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Updated: May 25, 2026

A Novel Digital Platform for a Monitored Home-based Cardiac Rehabilitation Program
Published on: April 19, 2019
A continuous, wearable, and wireless heart monitor using head ballistocardiogram (BCG) and head electrocardiogram
David Da He1, Eric S Winokur, Charles G Sodini
1Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. davidhe@mit.edu
Abstract:
Continuous and wearable heart monitoring is essential for early detection and diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases. We demonstrate a continuous, wearable, and wireless heart monitor that is worn at the ear. The device has the form factor of a hearing aid and is wirelessly connected to a PC for data recording and analysis. With the ear as an anchoring point, the heart monitor measures the ballistocardiographic (BCG) motion of the head using a MEMS tri-axial accelerometer, which is an electrode-less method to measure heart rate. Additionally, electrocardiogram (ECG) is measured locally near the ear using a single-lead configuration. The peak timing delay between the head ECG and the head BCG, or RJ interval, can be extracted in the presence of noise using cross-correlation. The RJ interval is shown to correlate to the heart's pre-ejection period during both Valsalva and whole-body tilt maneuvers.
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