Post activity cuffless blood pressure estimation in a body area network for paraplegic spinal cord injured patient rehabilitation

This paper will concern the post activity performance of a non-invasive method of blood pressure estimation through photoplethysmophgraphy (PPG) and ECG implemented within a body area network (BAN) and validated at 2 non-intrusive locations (arm and leg) on paraplegic spinal cord injured (SCI) patients undergoing rehabilitation. The sensors are connected wirelessly with the Bluetooth protocol within the BAN eliminating cumbersome wires between sensors, making it suitable for long-term rehabilitation monitoring. The patient is monitored during 3 predefined levels of activity, followed by a period of unsupervised monitoring in the field. Results show that for long-term, unsupervised monitoring, the estimation performance is directly proportional to the level of activity affecting the attachment of the PPG sensor and thus changing the calibration vectors if located on the arm. Results also show that estimation performance is within the Association for Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) requirements for measurements taken from the leg during supervised and unsupervised rehabilitation monitoring.