Authors:
T. Pereira
1
;
M. Cabeleira
1
;
P. Matos
1
;
E. Borges
1
;
V. Almeida
1
;
J. Cardoso
1
;
C. Correia
1
and
H. C. Pereira
2
Affiliations:
1
University of Coimbra, Portugal
;
2
University of Coimbra; ISA- Intelligent Sensing Anywhere, Portugal
Keyword(s):
Optical probes, Photodiode, Waveform distension, Pulse Transit Time, Pulse Wave Velocity.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Applications and Services
;
Biomedical Engineering
;
Biomedical Signal Processing
;
Cardiovascular Signals
;
Computer Vision, Visualization and Computer Graphics
;
Medical Image Detection, Acquisition, Analysis and Processing
Abstract:
Pulse wave velocity (PWV) is a clinically interesting parameter associated to cardiac risk due to arterial stiffness, generally evaluated by the time that the pressure wave spends to travel between two arbitrary points. Optic sensors are an attractive instrumental solution in this kind of time assessment applications due to their truly non-contact operation capability, which ensures an interference free measurement. On the other hand, they can pose different challenges to the designer, mostly related to the features of the signals they produce and to the associated signal processing burden required to extract error free, reliable information. In this work we evaluate two prototype optical probes dedicated to pulse transit time (PTT) evaluation as well as three algorithms for its assessment. Although the tests were carried out at the test bench, where “well behaved” signals can be obtained, the transition to a probe for use in humans is also considered. Results demonstrated the possib
ility of measuring pulse transit times as short as 1 ms with less than 1% error.
(More)