Non-Contact Monitoring of Heart and Lung Activity by Magnetic Induction Measurement

Abstract

In many clinical applications, the monitoring of heart and lung activity is of vital importance. State-of-the-art monitoring involves the use of electrodes or other contact based sensors (electrocardiogram (ECG), impedance cardiography (ICG), pulse oximetry or equivalent). With the equipment that is used, side effects like skin irritation, difficult application or additional cabling may occur. In contrast, this paper describes a method for non-contact monitoring of heart and lung activity, which is solely based on magnetic induction. This method allows simultaneous monitoring of heart and lung activity, and has the potential of an integrated application in a personal healthcare scenario. To illustrate the performance, a simple test-setup has been developed and the first results are presented here (some of which have been previously presented on the Poster 2008 [10]).