https://pmj.bmj.com/content/postgradmedj/61/716/555.1.full.pdf

Bailey and Love's Short Practice of Surgery

Health and alert-level monitoring of automotive driver is very important to reduce the number of vehicle accidents and associated fatalities. The proposed work focuses on the development of a reliable and low-cost health monitoring system for automotive drivers. It is based on non-contact electrocardiogram (ECG) principle. Multiple signal acquisition ECG electrodes are placed on the seat and seat-belt of the automotive. The signals from the different electrodes are interfaced to simple analog and digital signal processing units through a switching logic. The frequency domain-based digital processing and the switching logic ensures that best quality ECG signal is selected for heart rate (HR) estimation. A prototype of the proposed system is build and tested on several volunteers. These tests show that the accuracy is 2 bpm. Additional tests to determine the system performance in various conditions was conducted and results reported.

A health monitoring system using multiple non-contact ECG sensors for automotive drivers

Hemoglobin concentration is a vital parameter used to detect abnormalities in the human body including anemia and polycythemia. Currently, invasive techniques are used for hemoglobin measurement despite their many disadvantages including discomfort and potential complications for the pregnant, elderly and pediatric patients. This research paper focuses on measuring the hemoglobin concentration without drawing blood. In this study, measurements were obtained from a total of 106 patients and a linear relationship was obtained between hemoglobin concentration measured using the invasive technique (Hb) and the modulation ratio (R) calculated using red light and near-IR spectroscopy. The effect of confounding factors of gender and age were studied in this relationship. Based on the mathematical model developed, a non-invasive screening tool was developed to determine hemoglobin concentration. The device was evaluated using the 22 test subjects. The state-of-the-art hemoglobin measuring techniques do not facilitate continuous and remote monitoring which is essential in a point of care screening device. The proposed non-invasive device has the advantages of prevention of infections, physical pain, and the low operational or maintenance costs while being portable.

Non-Invasive Screening Tool to Detect Anemia

Photo-plethysmo-graphy (PPG) is a noninvasive method of obtaining a signal proportional to blood volume changes using light. From the initial trials seven decades back, the PPG technique has grown leaps and bounds and today its application has become indispensible not only during surgical procedures but also in patient monitoring in critical care environment. This paper traces the path of advancement of this technique and highlights the research outcomes of an "Indo German" collaborative research between Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India and Technical University (RWTH) Aachen, Germany funded by ministry of science (BMBF), Germany, Research projects funded by Department of Science and Technology and Department of Biotechnology, Government of India.

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel7/6708584/6717902/06717909.pdf

Vladimir Blazek

Papers

Photoplethsymography for non-invasive diagnostics