Single arm ECG system acquisition sites for monitoring applications

Abstract

Electrocardiography (ECG) is the procedure by which the heart’s electrical activity is recorded. The resulting electrocardiogram provides an insight into the various physiological activities of the heart, including the heart rate and the status of the heart. This work analyses single arm ECG system which uses two dry electrode material, namely copper and nickel of dimension 3 cm x 3 cm x 0.5 mm for the acquisition of ECG signal. The criteria for the selection of dry electrodes in this study are availability, cost, toxicity, impedance and conductivity. For this study, five ECG acquisition sites from the left arm are tested and the heart rate is calculated using National Instruments Biomedical workbench software. For this study, a total of 5 subject’s reading are taken. The position of the positive and negative electrode is fixed on the left arm referencing the base paper. Only the position of the reference electrode is changed which are, (i) straight line configuration (between the two leads), (ii) triangle configuration (7 cm diagonally below the two leads), (iii) wrist configuration, (iv) palm configuration (at the centre of the dorsal side or back of the hand), (v) elbow configuration. Using these sites, the best position for obtaining ECG is found to be: (i) wrist configuration, (ii) triangle configuration, and (iii) straight configuration. It is concluded that the best material for the acquisition of the ECG signal is Copper and stable output obtained from the wrist, triangle and straight configuration compared to the other two.