Mobile monitoring with wearable photoplethysmographic biosensors

We address both technical and clinical issues of wearable biosensors (WBS). First, design concepts of a WBS are presented, with emphasis on the ring sensor developed by the author's group at MIT. The ring sensor is an ambulatory, telemetric, continuous health-monitoring device. This WBS combines miniaturized data acquisition features with advanced photoplethysmographic (PPG) techniques to acquire data related to the patient's cardiovascular state using a method that is far superior to existing fingertip PPG sensors. In particular, the ring sensor is capable of reliably monitoring a patient's heart rate, oxygen saturation, and heart rate variability. Technical issues, including motion artifact, interference with blood circulation, and battery power issues, are addressed, and effective engineering solutions to alleviate these problems are presented. Second, based on the ring sensor technology the clinical potentials of WBS monitoring are addressed.