Feasibility Study on Fabric-Sheet Unified Sensing Electrode for Non-Contact In-Bed Measurements of ECG, Body Proximity and Respiratory Movement

In a recent article, we have reported that a fabric-sheet unified sensing electrode (FUSE) can detect electrocardiogram (ECG), body proximity at the chest and abdomen (BPxchest, BPxabd) and respiratory movement at the abdomen (RMabd) via worn clothes and bedsheet simultaneously from recumbent human subject. We conducted feasibility study involving 21 subjects to assess the influence of individual difference on this FUSE system. Results revealed that individual difference of physical constitution had little impact on both accuracies of ECG R wave and RMabd under the current FUSE configuration, but had some influence on the voltage changes in BPxchest and BPxabd caused by postural change. We deemed to revise some dimensions of the FUSE to avoid individual threshold setting for sitting up detection.