A possible way of managing critical chronic disease is continuous monitoring of the health of the patient. One of the major growing diseases around the world is Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). An Electrocardiogram (ECG), the electrical activity of the heart, is believed to be a very effective way of detecting heart-related problems noninvasively using conductive electrodes. Recent progress in wearable healthcare technology has made it possible for doctors to remotely observe the health conditions of their patients. However, conventional gel Ag/AgCl electrodes suffer from several drawbacks to be used in wearable devices due to their limited shelf life and allergic reaction to the skin. However, wearable dry electrodes resolve these problems and allow long-term continuous measurements regardless of patients¿ locations and status (e.g.: sleep or exercise). It is reasonable to hypothesize that the patient will sweat during the use of such electrodes and therefore, the sweat effect on skin-electrode impedance has to be assessed to avoid possible errors during, for instance, ECG measurement. A new and more accurate impedances measurement method will be investigated in this work, as opposed to the conventional way of impedance measurement by current probing. This method will be based on connecting known resistors in parallel to the inputs of a low noise pre-amplifier in a way that the interfacing of resistors will be controlled with the help of switches. A microcontroller will control the state of the switches and compute the root-mean-square (RMS) of the output voltage at different positions of the switches. This method will assess the variation of the skin-electrode impedance in the presence of sweat and identify the validity of the acquired biopotential signal.
Wearable technology is a branch of electronics that are embedded in clothes and can be worn. These devices consist of sensors to monitor different body parameters or activities, a microprocessor to comprehend the received data and performs analysis if needed. The use of a microcomputer enables access to data over the internet, which opens new paths for accessibility.
The main focus behind the invention of wearable technology to make life easier and convenient. Many commercial fitness wearable devices are seen in the market in the past decade and showed positive remarks from the consumers. In this way, consumers can monitor their health conditions themselves, by the use of specially designed mobile phone applications, and also keep track of any critical alerts.
A wearable healthcare device, instead, is a device designed especially for patients suffering from diseases, and the data recorded from such devices can be used by healthcare professionals, in real-time, to monitor the betterment of diseases over time, observe the effectiveness of the medicines or other diseases prevention treatments.
A wearable ECG device can monitor and record the ECG of the consumer. This device is one of the most appreciated devices and received the best wearable device award at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2019. ECG is the electrical activity of the heart and is a very effective way of detecting heart-related problems noninvasively. Recording of ECG signal requires a specially designed electrode, that transforms the ion current from the tissues to the electrical circuit acquiring ECG signal. Long term use of electrodes suffers from various artifacts, like motion, sweat, which may alter the quality of the recorded signal
Therefore, the work proposed in the project will focus on the dry type of electrode used in wearable type ECG recording devices under sweat and if executed successfully would lead to improving the performance of the dry electrode.