Ricerc@Sapienza

Impedance plethysmography is a technique that allows monitoring changes in the volume of specific tissues or organs inside the human body, through the measurement of variations in the bio-impedance between electrodes placed on the body surface. One of its best-known applications is the monitoring of respiratory activity based on trans-thoracic impedance measurements. Provided the measurement system has enough sensitivity, trans-thoracic impedance can also allow the detection of heartbeats, thus adding cardiac activity monitoring capabilities.

Unobtrusive and continuous monitoring of vital signs is becoming more and more important
both for patient monitoring in the home environment and for sports activity tracking. Even though
many gadgets and clinical systems exist, the need for simple, low-cost and easily applicable solutions
still remains, especially in view of a more widespread use within everyone’s reach. The paper presents
a fully wearable and wireless sensorized belt, suitable to simultaneously acquire respiratory and