Background and Objective

: Detectors of ankle-brachial index (ABI) are commonly used in cardiovascular patients who have high-risk levels of arteriosclerosis. Increased evidences suggest that patients with arteriosclerosis possess many risks of geriatric and chronic diseases. Meanwhile, new chronic treatments trend from the hospitals toward family and community health centers, but for arteriosclerosis cases have delivered benefits far below instrument costs. Compared to traditional devices based on cuff pressure, cuffless and non-invasive measures have wider application potential in home health care, especially in the case of physically-restricted or severely symptomatic patients.

Methods

: In this study, we developed a simple smartphone-based device for non-invasive ABI monitoring, which consists of four wireless cuffless limbs blood sensors. By identifying and tracking blood flow waveform, a multiparameter fusion (MPF) algorithm is used to estimate blood pressure and generate ABI value. An ARM-based chip STM32 has been adopted as the microcontroller. The ABI calculating program is embedded in C++ and executed by the processor. After generating data, ABI information can be delivered to the smartphone by using Bluetooth. Relying on mobile apps to visualize the data and display on the screen, doctors can monitor cardiovascular patients in real time and analyze the risk levels of arteriosclerosis online.

Results

: In this paper, the detection conducted by the classical Doppler equipment and prototype were recorded respectively. A statistical evaluation of the verification results obtained from 29 patients and 7 sub-health volunteers is given, which shows that our device can achieve 91.80% and 93.84% accuracy for patients and sub-health volunteers, respectively. In addition, the prototype can be performed stably for a continuous long time monitoring.

Conclusions

: According to our studies, the accuracy of our device is sufficient for home medical and chronic disease monitoring within a certain time interval. The smartphone-based ABI device has several apparent advantages over traditional devices, such as portability, cost-effectiveness and energy-efficiency.

中文翻译：

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基于智能手机的高性价比设备，用于踝臂指数（ABI）检测

背景与目的

：踝臂指数（ABI）检测器通常用于动脉硬化高危水平的心血管患者。越来越多的证据表明，动脉硬化患者有许多老年和慢性疾病的风险。同时，从医院到家庭和社区卫生中心的新的慢性治疗趋势，但是对于动脉硬化病例，其带来的收益远低于器械成本。与基于袖带压力的传统设备相比，无袖和无创措施在家庭保健中具有更广泛的应用潜力，特别是在身体受限或症状严重的患者中。

方法

：在这项研究中，我们开发了一种基于智能手机的简单设备，用于无创ABI监测，该设备由四个无线无袖四肢血液传感器组成。通过识别和跟踪血流波形，使用多参数融合（MPF）算法来估计血压并生成ABI值。微控制器采用了基于ARM的芯片STM32。ABI计算程序嵌入在C ++中，并由处理器执行。生成数据后，可以使用蓝牙将ABI信息传递到智能手机。依靠移动应用程序可视化数据并在屏幕上显示，医生可以实时监控心血管病患者，并在线分析动脉硬化的风险水平。

结果

：在本文中，分别记录了由经典多普勒设备和原型进行的检测。对29位患者和7位亚健康志愿者的验证结果进行了统计评估，结果表明，我们的设备对患者和亚健康志愿者的准确性分别达到91.80％和93.84％。另外，可以稳定地执行原型以进行连续的长时间监视。

结论

：根据我们的研究，我们的设备的准确性足以在一定时间间隔内进行家庭医疗和慢性疾病监测。与传统设备相比，基于智能手机的ABI设备具有一些明显的优势，例如便携性，成本效益和能源效率。