Wireless post-processing and interfacing ECG, blood pressure and blood oxygen measurement systems

Abstract

<p>Canadian hospitals are known to have high wait times. This is especially prominent in walk-in clinics. One of the basic diagnoses that every patient in walk- in clinic has to go through includes checking the blood pressure and health of the heart. The physician usually does this himself. Quick Doc is a portable system that measures ECG, blood oxygen content and blood pressure. Quick Doc could be used to perform the basic vital measurements and would help save physician’s valuable time. The way it works is that the transducers communicate the measured signals to the base station via a wireless link, where the signals are processed to yield meaningful result. The physiological signals from the human body in question range in mV. These signals are amplified to a range of Volts before transporting via the wireless link. Due to their inherent nature, a lot of associated noise is present. The noise is contributed from a variety of sources that range anywhere from unwanted muscle activity to 60Hz power interference. Most of the processing is done at the base station. This post-processing at the base station involves heavy filtering that provides an output, which is valuable information as the interpretation of the information could lead to simple predictions in quantitative measure of blood pressure, heart rate and blood oxygen content. These measures in turn, serve as the basis of many diagnostics in medicine. The report will center on assimilation of different ideas that led to Quick Doc. The specific focus will be on interfacing the signals from body to the base station with a wireless link as well as post-processing of these signals. The end result is electrocardiogram signal, blood pressure and blood oxygen content that is mostly consistent with commercial devices available in the market. This report goes step by step from acquiring signals to complex processing to yield a valid output. These outputs are presented as numbers, similar to what commercial devices produce. In addition, experiments with different techniques, failure of certain methodologies, and findings from those mistakes are also presented.</p>