Enhancing IJV Pulse Reliability: The Power of ICA in Wearable Accelerometry

Monitoring the internal jugular vein (IJV) pulse is crucial for cardiovascular assessment, but interference from the common carotid artery (CCA) complicates wearable accelerometer-based measurements. This study leverages Independent Component Analysis (ICA) to extract IJV signals from Skin Acceleration Plethysmography (APG) data, effectively minimizing CCA interference. An in-vivo study involving 22 participants revealed a 45.9% drop in %RMSE and a 137.1% rise in correlation (R) for IJV-APG post-ICA. Likewise, IJV-pulse signals exhibited a 41.1% reduction in %RMSE and a 31.6% correlation boost, demonstrating significant improvements (p < 0.05). The results confirm ICA's effectiveness in refining IJV pulse measurements via wearable accelerometry, reinforcing its potential for non-invasive, real-time cardiovascular health monitoring.Clinical Relevance- Utilizing ICA for wearable IJV pulse monitoring substantially improves measurement precision by mitigating CCA interference, making it a valuable tool for cardiovascular health assessment.