Comprehensive assessment of the physical development of children and adolescents at the outpatient stage

The article highlights one of the current issues of pediatrics - the study of the dynamics of Physical Development (PD) in children and adolescents. The numerous methods of assessment are used. The methods contain one-dimensional, two-dimensional and / or trimeric indicators. They do not fully give an idea of the level of the child's PD and do not reflect the patterns of his growth and development. In some cases, a pediatrician at the outpatient stage requires a comprehensive assessment of PD including age determination and compliance of biological age with the real age, determination of the PD harmony, somatotype determination, assessment of the direction of growth and development along with the calculation of indexes, functional state assessment, assessment of the degree of fat deposition or bioimpedance measurement, which allows determining the risk group. The assessment of PD indicators must be carried out according to regional tables.

Analysis, Simulation, and Development of a Low-Cost Fully Active-Electrode Bioimpedance Measurement Module

A low-cost 1 kHz–400 kHz operating frequency fully-active electrode bioimpedance measurement module, based on Howland current source, is presented in this paper. It includes a buffered positive feedback Howland current source, implemented with operational amplifiers, as well as an AD8421 instrumentation amplifier, for the differential voltage measurements. Each active electrode module can be connected to others, assembling a wearable active electrode module array. From this array, 2 electrodes can be selected to be driven from a THS413 fully differential amplifier, activating a mirrored Howland current source. This work performs a complete circuit analysis, verified with MATLAB and SPICE simulations of the current source’s transconductance and output impedance over the frequency range between 1 kHz and 1 MHz. Resistors’ tolerances, possible mismatches, and the operational amplifiers’ non-idealities are considered in both the analysis and simulations. A comparison study between four selected operational amplifiers (ADA4622, OPA2210, AD8034, and AD8672) is additionally performed. The module is also hardware-implemented and tested in the lab for all four operational amplifiers and the transconductance is measured for load resistors of 150 Ω, 660 Ω, and 1200 Ω. Measurements showed that, using the AD8034 operational amplifier, the current source’s transconductance remains constant for frequencies up to 400 KHz for a 150 Ω load and 250 kHz for a 1200 Ω load, while lower performance is achieved with the other 3 operational amplifiers. Finally, transient simulations and measurements are performed at the AD8421 output for bipolar measurements on the 3 aforementioned load resistor values.

Wireless connection of bioimpedance measurement circuits based-on AD5933: a state of the art

This contribution describes the state of the art in bioimpedance measurements through development boards to build portable devices that perform in-situ measurements and potential technological opportunities to separate the AD5933 integrated circuit from a PC. The presented research is based on prototypes developed with the aim of achieving portability with the AD5933 integrated circuit and it includes different wireless connection methods and a varied software design for the acquisition, visualization and storage of data obtained from biological systems. As a result, this work describes twenty articles that perform wireless connectivity using different microprocessors for different applications. These references seek to explore technological trends, deficiencies, and opportunities for future development projects in telemedicine.

Bioimpedance Measurement of Knee Injuries using Bipolar Electrode Configuration

Currently, there is no suitable solution for the point-of-care of knee injuries. A potential portable and low-cost technique for accessing and monitoring knee injuries is bioimpedance measurement. This study validated the feasibility of the bipolar electrode configuration for knee bioimpedance measurements with two electrodes placed on a fixed pair of knee acupuncture locations called Xiyan. Then, the study collected 82 valid samples to investigate the relationship between bioimpedance and knee injuries, among whom 45 patients, each with one healthy knee and one injured knee, and 37 individuals all with healthy knees. The self-contrast results indicated that knee injuries caused a reduction of bioimpedance of the knee by about 5% on average, which was detectable at around 100 kHz (p ≈ 0.001). Furthermore, the results analyzed by principal component analysis and support vector machines show that the detection sensitivity can reach 91.11% using the leave-one-out cross-validation.

Impact of Electrodes Separation Distance on Bio-Impedance Diagnosis

Bio-impedance diagnosis depends mainly on two factors first being the location of electrode placement and second being the distance between electrodes. To minimize the errors caused during bio impedance measurement at variable frequencies, it is required to study the electrodes used for the measurement and its exact location where the electrodes are placed. This paper analyses various electrode separations used for bioimpedance measurement for cardiac signal. The electrode system is used based on the type of tissue under consideration for measurement. It is found that the errors are dependent on the frequencies at which the measurement is carried out and it also depends on the intensity of current applied. Thus, selection of current and frequency is very important for measurements. In this paper, the impact of size, distance and location of the electrodes that can be used for bio-impedance cardiograph.

Low Power Contactless Bioimpedance Sensor for Monitoring Breathing Activity

An electronic circuit for contactless detection of impedance changes in a tissue is presented. It operates on the principle of resonant frequency change of the resonator having the observed tissue as a dielectric. The operating frequency reflects the tissue dielectric properties (i.e., the tissue composition and on the tissue physiological changes). The sensor operation was tested within a medical application by measuring the breathing of a patient, which was an easy detectable physiological process. The advantage over conventional contact bioimpedance measurement methods is that no direct contact between the resonator and the body is required. Furthermore, the sensor’s wide operating range, ability to adapt to a broad range of measured materials, fast response, low power consumption, and small outline dimensions enables applications not only in the medical sector, but also in other domains. This can be extended, for example, to food industry or production maintenance, where the observed phenomena are reflected in dynamic dielectric properties of the observed object or material.