Three Radial Artery Pulse Sensor Design for Siddha Based Disease Diagnosis

The roots of diagnostic techniques in Indian medical systems lie in the three radial pulses. In this paper we present design and analysis of a pulse sensor using PVDF material for acquiring the three pulses from the radial artery. Sensitivity analysis of the design is also presented. The sensors are firmly held at each of the three radial points and by varying the pressure on the sensor head the recordings were done on 10 healthy subjects who had no history of cardiovascular disease. The shapes of the pulses were analyzed using amplitude and frequency analysis and accordingly classified the subjects as vata, pitta and kapha type. Further we can also find that the pulses are varying over time from morning, afternoon, to evening. Establishing that the three pulses provide information about the psychic characteristics is difficult and it requires long term comprehensive, comparative research in to both modern medicine and Indian medicine. As the pulse diagnosis assumes an enormous significance in several alternative medical systems and the present work is a preliminary investigation to study the basis.