Liu Shuting, Liu Xueyu, Jiang Yanbing, Wang Xin, Huang Pingao, Wang Hui, Zhu Mingxing, Tan Jingqian, Li Peng, Lin Chuang, Zhang Guanghe, Chen Shixiong, Li Guanglin
Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2018 Jul;2018:4305-4308. doi: 10.1109/EMBC.2018.8513306.
Physiological signals such as ECG and EMG are closely related with human health and a long term monitoring of the physiological signals would be beneficial to detect possible disorders at the early stage. The wet electrodes currently used in the clinics require adhesives gels to record high-quality signals, which might cause discomfort of the patients and introduce some risk of skin allergy. Non-contact capacitive electrodes that can be operated without skin contact have been developed in previous studies, but these electrodes were rigid with electronic components on the back, which might not be an optimal solution for long term healthcare monitoring. In this study, a flexible non-contact electrode without any electronic components on both sides was designed for the long term acquisition of bioelectrical signals to maximize subject comfort. The flexible electrode was made up of multi-layer flexible printed circuits (FPC) materials and could be bent according to the local shape to achieve better non-contact capacitive coupling with the skin. The performance of the proposed flexible electrode was compared with that of the conventional wet electrodes in different signal recording conditions. The results showed that the proposed non-contact flexible electrode can capture high quality ECG and EMG signals, and its performance was comparable to the commonly used wet electrodes. This study might provide a reliable solution with great patient comfort for the long-term monitoring of biological signals.
诸如心电图（ECG）和肌电图（EMG）等生理信号与人类健康密切相关，对生理信号进行长期监测将有助于在早期阶段检测出可能的疾病。目前临床上使用的湿电极需要粘贴凝胶来记录高质量信号，这可能会给患者带来不适，并带来一些皮肤过敏风险。先前的研究已经开发出了无需皮肤接触即可操作的非接触式电容电极，但这些电极背面带有电子元件，比较坚硬，这对于长期医疗保健监测来说可能不是最佳解决方案。在本研究中，设计了一种两侧均无任何电子元件的柔性非接触电极，用于长期采集生物电信号，以最大程度地提高受试者的舒适度。该柔性电极由多层柔性印刷电路（FPC）材料制成，可以根据局部形状弯曲，以实现与皮肤更好的非接触电容耦合。在不同的信号记录条件下，将所提出的柔性电极的性能与传统湿电极的性能进行了比较。结果表明，所提出的非接触柔性电极能够捕获高质量的ECG和EMG信号，其性能与常用的湿电极相当。本研究可能为生物信号的长期监测提供一种患者舒适度高的可靠解决方案。
