Author(s)

Zehava Ovadia-Blechman^1*, Omri Gino¹, Liron Dandeker², Nadav Sheffer¹, Erik Baltaxe³, Vered Aharonson^1,2,4

¹Medical Engineering Department, Afeka Tel-Aviv Academic College of Engineering, Tel Aviv, Israel.
²Electrical Engineering Department, Afeka Tel-Aviv Academic College of Engineering, Tel Aviv, Israel.
³Pulmonary Diseases and Internal Medicine Institute, Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, Israel.
⁴School of Electrical and Information Engineering, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Peripheral oxygenation level (SpO₂) can provide vital information on body functions. Continuous monitoring facilitates effective diagnosis and treatment and can even be lifesaving. Clinical device monitor SpO₂ using a clip, and measure light transmission through the tissue. This method limits the body locations of the clip’s placement and is sensitive to body movement, which hampers continuous SpO₂ monitoring during wakefulness or sleep, thus decreasing its usability in clinics and its accessibility in homecare usage. We developed a portable, wireless, flat and low cost prototype for continuous monitoring of SpO₂ that overcomes those limitations. The prototype enables convenient measurement in larger variety of body locations by spectrophotometric measurements of changes in the optical reflectance unlike other device that measure absorption through the tissue. The original design and signal processing enable reliable signal acquisition, synchronization and control. An Android’s application was developed to provide a user friendly interface for results display on smartphones. The prototype’s measurements were compared to commercial device that simultaneously measured heart rate frequency, transcutaneous oxygen tension (tcPO₂) and SpO₂. The prototype’s measurements accurately reflected changes caused by blood pulses, were correlated to the heart rate, and were sensitive to changes in oxygen saturation. Excellent real time behavior and synchronization were demonstrated between the hardware and smartphone software. Our prototype thus enables convenient SpO₂ measurement over the entire body, while maintaining accuracy comparable to commercial device. Its smartphone application enables accessible and understandable results display to patients, care-givers and healthcare professionals. The application’s display and alert calibration flexibility facilitates the prototype’s usage in changing medical requirements and for various disease and conditions. A device based on this prototype can monitor continuously and accurately patients’ SpO₂ without limiting their everyday activities or disturbing their sleep and can thus significantly im-prove their medical care in both clinics and home.

Peripheral Oxygen Saturation, Noninvasive Monitoring, Medical Application, Pulse Oximetry

Ovadia-Blechman, Z. , Gino, O. , Dandeker, L. , Sheffer, N. , Baltaxe, E. and Aharonson, V. (2016) The Feasibility of Flat, Portable and Wireless Device for Non-Invasive Peripheral Oxygenation Measurement over the Entire Body. Journal of Biomedical Science and Engineering, 9, 147-159. doi: 10.4236/jbise.2016.93011.