Monitoring of the ballistocardiogram with the static charge sensitive bed

The authors describe the static charge sensitive bed (SCSB), which consists of a sensitive movement detector embedded in a mattress. When a subject rests on the bed, a single electrical signal, containing components reflective of cardiac, respiratory, and body movement related motion, is produced. The authors describe a digital signal processing technique. to separate the BCG (ballistocardiogram) from the SCSB signal. An evaluation of this algorithm was conducted using recordings from normal volunteers. Comparisons with simultaneously recorded reference signals indicated that the algorithm performed satisfactorily in a laboratory environment. The results presented demonstrate that valuable BCG information can be obtained from the SCSB signal after suitable processing.