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Motion Artifact reduction in ECG harness

  • Short Desription

    Abstract/Short Description of Invention

  • Problem Addressed

    Describe The Problem the Invention Addresses in Simple Terms

  • Solution to Solution

    The Invention Namely the Solution to the Problem

  • Prior Art Addressed

    Invention Addressed a Major Gap In Prior Art

The patent is for getting a clinical grade ECG during normal movement and exercises (like in a treadmill stress test) conveniently and quickly from a dry electrode wearable ECG harness without shaving, skin preparation or applying any gels in a convenient manner outside the hospital for cardiac preventive care.

An ECG sensor harness is a desirable form of a device that can be used by the people for home based cardiac monitoring and that does not require any hook up by medical professionals. The device needs to detect anomalies including, but not limited to, myocardial infarctions (MI), ischemia and arrhythmia. The ECG harnesses that are currently available provide limited information and limited performance. One of the causes for the performance limitation of these systems may be motion artifacts. 


Motion artifacts may occur when the subject is in motion during exercise or even moderate movement. Motion artifacts in the ECG signal may be realized in an impedance change seen by the sensor. A distorted signal can result in improper detection of ST segment changes in ECG. In many current solutions to detect ST segment changes, the user must remain relatively still to reduce or eliminate motion artifacts that may interfere with the performance of the system. This makes the detection of exercise-induced Ischemia difficult, if not impossible. The motion artifacts may be divided into two distinct components, those normal to the sensor-body interface and shear those tangential to the sensor-body interface. It is desirable to have a solution that either eliminates or minimizes both of these components so that clinical quality ST changes detection is possible with the obtained ECG signal. 

The invention uses two types of forces to keep the dry electrodes on the patient skin during exercises. Those are normal force to push the dry electrodes towards the body and the shear force to prevent the movement of the electrodes on the body of the patients. These two forces are applied simultaneously and continuously when the patient is wearing the ECG harness during rest, simple activity and exercises. The forces are implemented using simple materials inside the ECG harness.

Some solutions attempt to reduce motion artifacts using additional normal force to push the sensors on the body. However they are not sufficient in mitigating the motion artifacts. Harnesses are designed based on dry electrodes typically and the dry electrodes can’t control shear movement of the sensors. Some dry electrodes use structures that pierce the skin’s layer stratum corneum to avoid motion artifacts and may cause discomfort after long usage on chest area. The ideal solution for a harness needs to be gentle for the body. These solutions were never commercialized and did not allow the Exercise ECG monitoring or the early detection on the population at risk.

Application Number85/CHE/2014
Patent Number540782
ApplicantNimbleHeart
Current StatusGranted
CountryIndia
IndustryPharmaceuticals and Biotechnology
Patent TypeSingle Patent
Available ForSale&License

Complete Specification

Country Current Status Patent Application Number Patent Applicant Patent Number Title Google Patent Link
India Granted 85/CHE/2014 NimbleHeart 540782 METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR MOTION ARTIFACT REDUCTION IN ECG HARNESS Click to open