1996 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Home health monitoring for elderly : Development of a health monitoring device for bathing
| Project/Area Number |
06557149
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 試験 |
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| Research Field |
Nursing
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| Research Institution | Tokyo Medical and Dental University |
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Principal Investigator |
TAMURA Toshiyo Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Inst.for Med.& Dent.Eng., Associate Professor, 医用器材研究所, 助教授 (10142259)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
SAITO Hirokazu Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Inst.for Med.& Dent.Eng., Technical Officia, 医用器材研究所, 教務職員 (00205668)
TOGAWA Tatsuo Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Inst.for Med.& Dent.Eng., Professor, 医用器材研究所, 教授 (40013859)
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| Project Period (FY) |
1994 – 1996
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| Keywords | Electrocardiogram / Heart rate / Data transmission / Home health care / Bathing / Automatic data acquisition / Personal identification / Bathtub ECG |
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| Research Abstract |
An unconstrained electrocardiograph (ECG) and heart rate monitor was designed to record ECG measurements in the bathtub. The apparatus consisted of analog and digital parts. In the analog part, electrocardiographic signals obtained from electrodes placed inside the bathtub were amplified. The electrodes were made of stainless steel and were 104*74*0.5 mm in size including the absorbent sponge covers. Working electrodes were placed 20 cm from the bottom of the long bathtub wall, close to the position of the immersed trunk, and a reference electrode was placed 5 cm from the bottom of the side wall close to the toe position. In the digital part of the system the heart rate was calculated from the R-R interval of each ECG pulse and the calculated data were stored in a random access memory. These store data were transferred to a personal computer through an RS 232C interface and analyzed. The heart rates obtained from the bathtub ECG agreed with those obtained from a body surface ECG.The frequency characteristics of the bathtub ECG varied with the bathtub dimensions and the electrical conductivity of the water. Using this apparatus, heart rate measurement can be obtained easily and noninvasively, but interpretation of the electrocardiographic signal requires great care. This monitor could thus be used as a home health heart rate monitor.
For home health care, personal identification was required when other family members also used monitoring devices. In bed personal identification was easy because most subjects use their own bed. In the bathtub, personal identification using an ECG waveform was proposed [7,8]. The ECG waveform of one cardiac cycle was obtained and wavelet transform in which the mother wavelet was Daubechies-4 was applied to reduce the ECG data and a three-layr neural network was introduced to identify each subject among the family members.
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