SMART medical polydimethylsiloxane for monitoring vital signs of the human body

Abstract

This paper focuses on current trends in non-invasive monitoring of vital functions of the human body using SMART sensors. It describes a sensor pad made of a thin layer of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), which contains one symmetrically positioned fibre Bragg grating (FBG). The PDMS material is immune to electromagnetic interferences (EMI) and inert to human skin. By combining fibre-optic technology and PDMS, the SMART PAD sensor is formed which is used not only for classical hospital environments, but also for electromagnetically interfered environments, for example magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The basic monitored parameters described are the respiratory rate (RR) and heart rate (HR) of the human body. The results were obtained in a laboratory environment in a group of 10 volunteers upon their written consent. The acquired results were compared by the Bland-Altman (B-A) method, which belongs to the group of statistical methods in biomedical research.