{"title":"The role of face regions in remote photoplethysmography for contactless heart rate monitoring","authors":"Maksym Bondarenko, Carlo Menon, Mohamed Elgendi","doi":"10.1038/s41746-025-01814-9","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Heart rate (HR) estimation is crucial for early cardiovascular diagnosis, continuous monitoring, and various health applications. While electrocardiography (ECG) remains the gold standard, its discomfort and impracticality for continuous use have spurred the development of non-contact methods like remote photoplethysmography (rPPG). This systematic review (PROSPERO: CRD 42024592157) examines 70 studies to assess the impact of Region of Interest (ROI) selection on HR estimation accuracy. Most methods (36.8%) use the holistic face, while forehead and cheek areas (24.5% and 21.7%) show superior accuracy. Machine learning-based approaches outperform traditional methods under motion artifacts and poor lighting, achieving Mean Absolute Error and Root Mean Square Error below 1.0 for some datasets. Combining multiple patches improves performance, though increasing ROIs beyond 60 patches results in diminishing returns and higher computational complexity. These findings highlight the significance of ROI optimization for robust rPPG-based HR estimation.</p>","PeriodicalId":19349,"journal":{"name":"NPJ Digital Medicine","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":12.4000,"publicationDate":"2025-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"NPJ Digital Medicine","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-025-01814-9","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"HEALTH CARE SCIENCES & SERVICES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Heart rate (HR) estimation is crucial for early cardiovascular diagnosis, continuous monitoring, and various health applications. While electrocardiography (ECG) remains the gold standard, its discomfort and impracticality for continuous use have spurred the development of non-contact methods like remote photoplethysmography (rPPG). This systematic review (PROSPERO: CRD 42024592157) examines 70 studies to assess the impact of Region of Interest (ROI) selection on HR estimation accuracy. Most methods (36.8%) use the holistic face, while forehead and cheek areas (24.5% and 21.7%) show superior accuracy. Machine learning-based approaches outperform traditional methods under motion artifacts and poor lighting, achieving Mean Absolute Error and Root Mean Square Error below 1.0 for some datasets. Combining multiple patches improves performance, though increasing ROIs beyond 60 patches results in diminishing returns and higher computational complexity. These findings highlight the significance of ROI optimization for robust rPPG-based HR estimation.
期刊介绍:
npj Digital Medicine is an online open-access journal that focuses on publishing peer-reviewed research in the field of digital medicine. The journal covers various aspects of digital medicine, including the application and implementation of digital and mobile technologies in clinical settings, virtual healthcare, and the use of artificial intelligence and informatics.
The primary goal of the journal is to support innovation and the advancement of healthcare through the integration of new digital and mobile technologies. When determining if a manuscript is suitable for publication, the journal considers four important criteria: novelty, clinical relevance, scientific rigor, and digital innovation.