Investigation of photoplethysmogram morphology for the detection of hypovolemic states

Medics and first responders to emergencies are often faced with monitoring and assessing victims with very limited resources. Therefore, there is an inherent need for a real-time ambulatory monitoring capability that is portable and low power. This is particularly important for physiological monitoring of life-threatening conditions such as internal hemorrhaging. We propose the use of photoplethysmogram (PPG) morphology as an indicator of hypovolemic states and study its correlation with blood pressure. In this paper, we compared the PPG morphology with pulse transit time (PTT), which has been investigated for clinical and ambulatory applications. The indicators were tested on data obtained from experiments using lower body negative pressure (LBNP) as a model to simulate hemorrhage in humans. The results of this study indicate that PPG morphology is associated with pulse pressure (systolic minus diastolic blood pressure) and is therefore a promising feature for detection and real-time tracking of hypovolemic states.