An ECG bracelet with communication system

Quality of life of patients needing repeated ECG measurements is threatened by the need of several hospital visits, cost inefficiency of having ECG measurements at hospitals and discomfort caused by many ECG leads. For such patients an ECG system with continuous measurements gives profound insight into the heart’s condition. Therefore a low cost, lead I ECG measurement device with a universal communication system would benefit the patient significantly. In this thesis, a low cost electrocardiogram bracelet with communication system using a microphone jack was designed and developed from textile electrodes and electronic components. Different variations and types of textile electrodes were compared and inspected in order to find the most suitable one for this biomedical application. The criteria for selecting the final textile electrode were low power spectral density, root mean square noise and electrical bioimpedance. The bracelet itself is made out of textile electrodes, with connectors to the communication system which will enable any computer or device with a sound port to detect, show and save the ECG measurements. This type of system enables for the equipment to be used in any place at the patients’ convenience as long as he has access to a sound recording device with a microphone port. To confirm the functionality and the quality of the ECG waveform recorded by the manufactured device, it was necessary to have a testing session to observe the performance of the device and communication system. After the initial measurements with laboratory equipment, functionality of the constructed system was tested with a BIOPAC MP36, after which the signal was recorded with a microphone jack. The ECG bracelet obtained consistently good quality ECG, which leads us to see a future in this line of medical instrumentation