Monitoring peripheral edema of heart failure patients at home: Device, algorithm, and clinic study

Continuous monitoring of heart failure (HF) patients is desirable in order to better manage their illness and reduce unnecessary hospitalization. A comprehensive cloud-based HF patient management system is proposed to collect patients' health status information and provide just-in-time intervention. To date, an HF patient edema monitoring system prototype, including the device and its algorithm, has been developed. The hardware features multiple sensors whose data are fused using an edema classification algorithm based on a standard linear solid (SLS) edematous tissue model. Clinical data have been collected and analyzed to verify the effectiveness of the hardware and software. While the analysis results show some promise, full validation of the device and the algorithm warrant further study.