Textile Technology for the Vital Signs Monitoring in Telemedicine and Extreme Environments

Abstract

This paper illustrates two extensive applications of a smart garment we previously developed for the monitoring of ECG, respiration, and movement. In the first application, the device, named Maglietta Interattiva Computerizzata (MagIC), was used for the home monitoring of cardiac patients. The used platform included MagIC for signals collection, a touchscreen computer with a dedicated software for data handling, and a universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS) dongle for data transmission, via email, to three cardiologists. Three patients daily-performed 3-min telemonitoring sessions for 30 days by using the platform. The whole system behaved correctly in 85 out of 90 sessions. In five instances, a second session was required due to UMTS traffic congestion. Only in three sessions, cardiologists asked the patient to repeat the acquisition because of poor signal quality. In the second application, MagIC was used to evaluate the effects of high-altitude hypoxia on sleep and 24 h daily life in 30 healthy subjects at 3500 and 5400 m above sea level on Mount Everest slopes. The use of MagIC garment was reported to be simple and requiring short instrumentation time even in the demanding expedition environment. The signal quality was adequate in 111 out of 115 recordings and 90% of the subjects found the vest comfortable.

A Cardiac Early Warning System with Multi Channel SCG and ECG Monitoring for Mobile Health

“…Recently, wearable devices such as a smart band [41], smart belt [42], smart cloth [19,43] and smart helmet [32] are becoming popular means to collect various physiological data in a continuous manner. There exist plenty of commercial wearable devices, which can successfully retrieve cardiological data.…”

Applications of evolving technologies in sleep medicine

“…Breathe | December 2013 | Volume 9 | No 6 devices for vital sign monitoring [79]. In particular, textile sensors can now be embedded in smart garments for collecting a variety of biological signals (ECG, bioimpedance, skin resistance, respiratory frequency, etc.).…”

“…Pathways made of the same conductive fibres connect the above transducers with the electronic module, which is hooked to the vest at waist level by a Velcro strip. The electronic module includes a three-axis accelerometer to detect subjects' movements, stores data on a local memory card, and can transmit all signals via Bluetooth to an external computer for data visualisation, storage on disk and, possibly, a relay transmission through Wi-Fi or universal mobile telecommunications system connections to a remote monitoring station [79,82].…”

An e-Textile-based wearable spirometer and its adaptability for context changes depending on sweat and meal

“…For example, the coils, which are the main parts of the mechanical sensors, may get caught between the patient's back and the backrest of a chair, thus causing its user pain. Adopting an e-textile-based structure, several wearable systems, such as Wealthy [6], MyHeart [7], and MagIC [8], can detect lung behavior. Lanata et al [9] compared the accuracies of four systems' respiratory volume estimations during several exercises.…”