Non-intrusive Monitoring of Biological Signal for Ubiquitous Healthcare

Kwang Suk Park

Advanced Biometric Research Center & Dept. of Biomedical Engineering,

College of Medicine, Seoul National University

Objective: With the progress of ubiquitous technologies, there is also increase in the need for the ubiquitous management of healthcare. To monitor the status and activities for the patients out of hospital environment, several technologies should meet the requirements. Among these, non-intrusive measurement of the patient data and signals is essential for the ubiquitous healthcare monitoring method to be a practical one. So, we are to develop the methods which can monitor biological signals, such as ECGs and respirations, without interrupting patient’s ordinary daily activities.

Method: Sensors which can measure biological signals are attached or installed in the daily-using-devices which we meet during our daily life. Bed, chairs and toilet seat are the representative ones for this purpose. We have installed conductive sheet on the bed   to measure ECG and to derive respiration from measured ECG., installed loadcells under the bed to monitor body activities during sleep, developed the air mattress system to measure heart and respiratory activities on bed and chair, installed the sensors to measure ECG during bath in the bathtub, installed several sensors on toilet seat to measure while patient is on and developed capacitively coupled sensors to measure ECG with clothes on in the chair In addition to these, we are also trying to develop method to estimate urine contents and blood pressure

Result: From the sensors attached to daily-using-devices, biological signals such as heart rate, respiration and body movement are successfully measured. Even though their SNR are not as high as in the ordinary diagnostic measurements, they have shown the patient physical or mental status sufficiently in qualitative and quantitative way.

Conclusion: Non-intrusive biological signal monitoring methods which can monitor biological signals of the patient without interrupting patient’s daily ordinary activities have been successfully implemented. These methods can be applied patients management at home or at office for ubiquitous healthcare management as basic tools.

Key words: Non-intrusive, Bio-Signal, ECG, Ubiquitous, Monitoring