Noninvasive ambulatory measurement system of cardiac activity

This work implements a noninvasive system that measures the movements caused by cardiac activity. It uses unobtrusive Electro-Mechanical Films (EMFi) on the seat and on the backrest of a regular chair. The system detects ballistocardiogram (BCG) and respiration movements. Real data was obtained from 54 volunteers. 19 of them were measured in the laboratory and 35 in a hospital waiting room. Using a BIOPAC acquisition system, the ECG was measured simultaneously to the BCG for comparison. Wavelet Transform (WT) is a better option than Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) for signal extraction and produces higher effective measurement time. In the laboratory, the best results are obtained on the seat. The correlation index was 0.9800 and the Bland-Altman limits of agreement were 0.7136 ± 4.3673 [BPM]. In the hospital waiting room, the best results are also from the seat sensor. The correlation index was 0.9840, and the limits of agreement were 0.4386 ± 3.5884 [BPM]. The system is able to measure BCG in an unobtrusive way and determine the cardiac frequency with high precision. It is simple to use, which means the system can easily be used in non-standard settings: resting in a chair or couch, at the gym, schools or in a hospital waiting room, as shown.