A Comparison of Reflective Photoplethysmography for Detection of Heart Rate, Blood Oxygen Saturation, and Respiration Rate at Various Anatomical Locations

Sally K Longmore; Gough Y Lui; Ganesh Naik; Paul P Breen; Bin Jalaludin; Gaetano D Gargiulo

doi:10.3390/s19081874

A Comparison of Reflective Photoplethysmography for Detection of Heart Rate, Blood Oxygen Saturation, and Respiration Rate at Various Anatomical Locations

Sensors (Basel). 2019 Apr 19;19(8):1874. doi: 10.3390/s19081874.

Authors

Sally K Longmore¹, Gough Y Lui², Ganesh Naik³, Paul P Breen^{4

5}, Bin Jalaludin^{6

7}, Gaetano D Gargiulo^{8

9}

Affiliations

¹ MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Milperra, NSW 2560, Australia. s.longmore@westernsydney.edu.au.
² MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Milperra, NSW 2560, Australia. g.lui@westernsydney.edu.au.
³ MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Milperra, NSW 2560, Australia. ganesh.naik@westernsydney.edu.au.
⁴ MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Milperra, NSW 2560, Australia. p.breen@westernsydney.edu.au.
⁵ Translational Health Research Institute, Western Sydney University, Campbelltown, NSW 2560, Australia. p.breen@westernsydney.edu.au.
⁶ Ingham Institute of Applied Medical Research, University of New South Wales, Liverpool, NSW 2052, Australia. b.jalaludin@unsw.edu.au.
⁷ Centre for Air Pollution, Energy and Health Research (CAR), Glebe, NSW 2037, Australia. b.jalaludin@unsw.edu.au.
⁸ MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Milperra, NSW 2560, Australia. G.Gargiulo@westernsydney.edu.au.
⁹ Translational Health Research Institute, Western Sydney University, Campbelltown, NSW 2560, Australia. G.Gargiulo@westernsydney.edu.au.

Abstract

Monitoring of vital signs is critical for patient triage and management. Principal assessments of patient conditions include respiratory rate heart/pulse rate and blood oxygen saturation. However, these assessments are usually carried out with multiple sensors placed in different body locations. The aim of this paper is to identify a single location on the human anatomy whereby a single 1 cm × 1 cm non-invasive sensor could simultaneously measure heart rate (HR), blood oxygen saturation (SpO₂), and respiration rate (RR), at rest and while walking. To evaluate the best anatomical location, we analytically compared eight anatomical locations for photoplethysmography (PPG) sensors simultaneously acquired by a single microprocessor at rest and while walking, with a comparison to a commercial pulse oximeter and respiration rate ground truth. Our results show that the forehead produced the most accurate results for HR and SpO₂ both at rest and walking, however, it had poor RR results. The finger recorded similar results for HR and SpO₂, however, it had more accurate RR results. Overall, we found the finger to be the best location for measurement of all three parameters at rest; however, no site was identified as capable of measuring all parameters while walking.

Keywords: SpO2; anatomical location; heart rate; photoplethysmography; respiration rate.