DR.BEAT: Initial Functional Testing of a BCG Wearable Prototype for Recording Ballistocardiographic Signals.

DR.BEAT ("Digital Research on Ballistocardiography for Extraterrestrial And Terrestrial use") develops a miniaturized sensor system with signal processing to interpret ballistocardiographic signals and implements an application oriented user interface. Presented is a breadboard prototype's functional tests with regard to data completeness and plausibility. The analysis confirmed a reliability of 99.99995% over the tests and the signals displayed the expected heart-specific characteristics. These results support the ethical justifiability of an initial study.

DR.BEAT: First Insights into a Study to Collect Baseline BCG Data with a Sensor-Based Wearable Prototype in Heart-Healthy Adults.

The DR.BEAT project aims at the further development of a measurement system for recording ballistocardiographic signals into a body-worn sensor system combined with extensive signal processing, data evaluation and visualization. With a first breadboard prototype, an explorative feasibility study for acquiring initial signals of healthy cardiac activity in adults was performed. This paper briefly presents the DR.BEAT project, the breadboard prototype, the study conducted, and initial insights into the study results. The signals obtained in the study exhibit the seismocardiographic characteristics as reported in the literature and form the basis for further development of the hardware as well as the pre-processing and automated analysis algorithms in the DR.BEAT project.Clinical Relevance- The characteristics of ballisto- and seismocardiographic signals allow to infer about the mechanical work of the heart. The development of a body-worn sensor system to record ballisto- and seismocardiographic signals, compact enough for everyday wear, enables the acquisition of heart-specific parameters in terrestrial as well as extraterrestrial application scenarios. Combined with extensive signal analysis and visualization, it holds the potential to monitor heart health in a variety of contexts and support its maintenance and improvement.

Development of a Presentation Interface for Seismo- and Ballistocardiographic Data.

Ballistocardiography is a method to gain detailed information about body movements imparted by the ballistic forces associated with cardiac contraction. We measured using different setups and sensor positions to gain information of a reference signal of healthy adults. We used two resting state recordings and two recordings under physical stress (ergometer and treadmill) with stepwise increasing load. Data was gathered from 34 subjects, which results in 72 data sets, overall, more than 18h of signal data. With these data we have created a first database for BCG reference. We started data analysis and created a first naive data representation prototype. Using this naive attempt, we created a user interface for the intuitive representation of live data as well as retrospective data.

Wireless Sensor Network for Fall Prevention on Geriatric Wards: A Report.

With regard to the growing number of older adults, it needs smart solutions for fall prevention. Especially at geriatric institutions, the risk of falling is very high and frequently leads to injuries, resulting in serious consequences. We present the Inexpensive Node for Bed Exit Detection (INBED), a comprehensive signaling system for fall prevention. The INBED system is based on a wireless sensor network infrastructure via IEEE802.15.4 and highly-specialized open hardware in-house developed wearable. The device, which will be attached to the patients, can detect several types of movement. Occurring events are forwarded to the nursing staff immediately by using the self-organizing and scalable network including wide area network integration. The system can help to relieve the staff while the personal freedom of movement and privacy of patients is increased. With this development, the energy-efficient, simple and intuitive mechanisms of proximity communication can be combined with broadband benefits.

First Feasibility Analysis of Ballistocardiography on a Passenger Flight.

The project SCARAB2 (Scalable, Robust and Adaptive on Board Ballistocardiography) aims to use Ballistocardiography (BCG) to monitor flight passengers. In order to show that recorded BCG data from flights give evaluable information even in the noisy environment of an airplane, we monitored a heart-healthy passenger using BCG. Furthermore, we show that there can be a conclusion to heart activities from the recorded ballistocardiogram by comparing the data to a concurrently recorded electrocardiogram (ECG).

Advantages of Modular Hybrid Network Communication on Clinical Wards.

The ever-increasing flood of information, especially in the medical-clinical field, inter alia due to the increase of data-intensive mobile/wearable devices, is one of the biggest challenges of medical informatics. In this work different possibilities of the integration of wearable devices on the example of the development of a fall prevention system are presented and classified. We started with a commercial off-the-shelf one-on-one system (Shimmer/Arduino) using a Bluetooth connection, integrated via nurse call system as Human-Machine-Interface. During the evaluation of the system we mentioned several new requirements and optimization possibilities. Thus, we adjusted the hardware-software-system; the near-field communication was realized by IEEE802.15.4, we replaced commercial off-the-shelf devices with highly-specialized open hardware in-house developments and we transferred the nurse call integration by setting up our own network and integrating this into an existing (wireless) local area network. With this development, the energy-efficient, simple and intuitive mechanisms of proximity communication via IEEE802.15.4 can be combined with the benefits broadband functionalities, e.g. of Wi-Fi, with both worlds benefits and the compensation of some disadvantages.