A portable method for assessing gastrointestinal motility by simultaneously measuring transit time and contraction frequency.

To portably monitor the motility of the total GI tract, a method for assessing GI motility by simultaneously measuring transit time and contraction frequency is put forward. The portable monitoring system is composed of a swallowable telemetric capsule, a portable recorder, magnetizing coils deposited in vitro, and workstation for data processing. The transit time and contraction frequency of the GI tract are deduced by analysing the variation of the position and orientation angles of a telemetric capsule in time domain and frequency domain. AC electromagnetic localization method is used to determine the position and orientation of the telemetric capsule in vivo. In the paper, the localization model based on a quasi-static magnetic field, the method of monitoring GI motility and the set-up of the monitoring system are detailed. Then from static and dynamic experiments, the performances of the system including the accuracy and dynamic response are evaluated. Finally, the electromagnetic safety of the system is verified by simulating electromagnetic radiation to the human body.