Objective:
Musculoskeletal health monitoring is limited in everyday settings where patient symptoms can substantially change – delaying treatment and worsening patient outcomes. Wearable technologies aim to quantify musculoskeletal health outside clinical settings but sensor constraints limit usability. Wearable localized multi-frequency bioimpedance assessment (MFBIA) shows promise for tracking musculoskeletal health but relies on gel electrodes, hindering extended at-home use. Here, we address this need for usable technologies for at-home musculoskeletal health assessment by designing a wearable adhesive-free MFBIA system using textile electrodes in extended uncontrolled mid-activity settings.
Methods:
An adhesive-free multimodal wearable leg MFBIA system was developed in-lab under realistic conditions (5 participants, 45 measurements). Mid-activity textile and gel electrode MFBIA was compared across multiple compound movements (10 participants). Accuracy in tracking long-term changes in leg MFBIA was assessed by correlating gel and textile MFBIA simultaneously recorded in uncontrolled settings (10 participants, 80+ measurement hours).
Results:
Mid-activity MFBIA measurements with textile electrodes agreed highly with (ground truth) gel electrode measurements (average
${{\bm{r}}}^2 = {\bm{\ }}0.95)$
, featuring <1-Ohm differences (0.618 ± 0.340 Ω) across all movements. Longitudinal MFBIA changes were successfully measured in extended at-home settings (repeated measures r = 0.84). Participant responses found the system to be comfortable and intuitive (8.3/10), and all participants were able to don and operate the system independently.
Conclusion:
This work demonstrates wearable textile electrodes can be a viable substitute for gel electrodes when monitoring leg MFBIA in dynamic, uncontrolled settings.
Significance:
Adhesive-free MFBIA can improve healthcare by enabling robust wearable musculoskeletal health monitoring in at-home and everyday settings.
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关键词
Electrical bioimpedance,wearable sensing,textile electrodes,joint physiology,musculoskeletal health
