A Novel 12-Lead ECG T-Shirt with Active Electrodes

Abstract

Abstract:We developed an ECG T-shirt with a portable recorder for unobtrusive and long-term multichannel ECG monitoring with active electrodes. A major drawback of conventional 12-lead ECGs is the use of adhesive gel electrodes, which are uncomfortable during long-term application and may even cause skin irritations and allergic reactions. Therefore, we integrated comfortable patches of conductive textile into the ECG T-shirt in order to replace the adhesive gel electrodes. In order to prevent signal deterioration, as reported for other textile ECG systems, we attached active circuits on the outside of the T-shirt to further improve the signal quality of the dry electrodes. Finally, we validated the ECG T-shirt against a commercial Holter ECG with healthy volunteers during phases of lying down, sitting, and walking. The 12-lead ECG was successfully recorded with a resulting mean relative error of the RR intervals of 0.96% and mean coverage of 96.6%. Furthermore, the ECG waves of the 12 leads were analyzed separately and showed high accordance. The P-wave had a correlation of 0.703 for walking subjects, while the T-wave demonstrated lower correlations for all three scenarios (lying: 0.817, sitting: 0.710, walking: 0.403). The other correlations for the P, Q, R, and S-waves were all higher than 0.9. This work demonstrates that our ECG T-shirt is suitable for 12-lead ECG recordings while providing a higher level of comfort compared with a commercial Holter ECG.

Recent Advances on Wearable Electronics and Embedded Computing Systems for Biomedical Applications

“…In the frame of wearable electronics and embedded computing systems for biomedical applications, this Special Issue of Electronics includes a total of 14 papers, including two review papers and twelve research articles [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. The issue spans a wide range of topics, including smart sensing footwear systems, human-body hydration monitoring, textile-based ECG monitoring in human and horses, biotelemetry and telemedicine, support for surgical navigation, wearable autonomic nervous system activity monitoring, and hand posture and tactile pressure sensing [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15].…”

Correction of the Unobtrusive ECG Using System Identification

“…A study was conducted with seven healthy participants (4 male, 3 female) and utilizing data from three healthy male volunteers participating in [19]. All subjects gave their informed consent for inclusion before they participated in the study.…”

“…In Table 4 the deviation of the R-peaks is evaluated using the mean square error measure (MSE) in arbitrary units (a.u.). The ECG waves were extracted using the algorithm from [19]. The flattening of the R-peaks for the uECG can be observed, especially in aVR (MSE aVR = 2.45 ± 2.85, MSE aVL = 0.97 ± 1.73, MSE aVF = 0.51 ± 0.49).…”

“…First, the raw data from the T-shirt ECG and the reference device were synchronized, as reported in [19]. The Goldberger leads aVL, aVF and aVR were selected for system identification.…”

“…The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and the protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of RWTH Aachen University (Reference code: EK 283/17). The volunteers were asked to wear the dry 12-lead ECG T-shirt [19] and a reference Holter ECG BT12 (Corscience, Erlangen, Germany) while sitting still and relaxed in front of their desks. The dry ECG electrodes were located on the interior of the T-shirt.…”