Preliminary results on transthoracic bioimpedance measurements with a variety of electrode materials

摘要

Transthoracic bioimpedance (TBI) is a simple method for assessing body fluid accumulations, and as such can be used for early detection of heart failure. In this work, we used a comfortable vest with various electrodes that was worn daily for 5 minutes to measure bioimpedance. Five different electrode types were tested on N = 10 healthy volunteers: Ag/AgCl, textile, copper mesh (CM) carbon black (CB) polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) textile CB PDMS, and PEDOT salt textile CB PDMS. Inter-subject TBI and ECG tests were performed on all 5 electrode types, while the obtained results were compared to results acquired with textile electrodes. In addition, intra-subject consistencies of TBI measurements were obtained for textile and CM/CB/PDMS electrodes. Acquired TBI measurements from all electrode types were statistically different compared to textile electrodes. CM/CB/PDMS electrodes achieved the highest correlation to the textile electrodes, and the smallest 95% limits of agreement, which makes them very reliable, and a suitable alternative to textile electrodes.