gms | German Medical Science

Introduction: Unobtrusive monitoring of vital signs has gained importance over the last decades, especially with the recent advances in digital connectivity, miniaturization and integration of electronic components, computational capabilities as well as costs and availability of measurement devices. Camera-based technology provides the opportunity to obtain patient-related physiological parameters from a distance without requiring direct skin contact as necessary for conventional patient monitoring. Photoplethysmography imaging (PPGI), ballistocardiography (BCG), motion analysis and thermal effects of blood flow or air flow have been presented as different approaches to extract physiological parameters, such as heart rate or respiratory rate. Camera-fusion techniques were presented during the last few years to achieve a more robust and reliable detection of the patient’s vital signs.

Methods: In this contribution, we present two application scenarios demonstrating the capabilities of camera-based data fusion approaches to extract cardiorespiratory parameters at the edges of human life: Neonatology and geriatrics. In our setups, we used varying numbers and combinations of different camera modalities, such as conventional RGB cameras, monochrome cameras with dedicated optical filters in the visible and infrared spectrum and infrared thermography cameras. We compare the accuracy of these measurement modalities with respect to conventional patient monitoring and analyze the coverage of these approaches in real-world clinical everyday life environments.

Results: This contribution demonstrates the capabilities of camera-based technology in clinical settings with the example of neonatology and geriatrics. Results are presented on a qualitative and comparative scale through different studies conducted in collaborative projects of the Chair of Medical Information Technology at RWTH Aachen University. The results suggest that camera-based technology provides a promising supplement or alternative to conventional patient monitoring in cases where direct skin contact or cables are unfavorable and the corresponding patients are not in critical or life-threatening conditions.

Conclusion: Neonatology and geriatrics are two fields in the clinical environment that deal with specific patient conditions and therefore have special requirements for patient monitoring. Due to the unobtrusive and non-contact nature of camera-based technology, it provides a promising opportunity to increase the coverage of monitoring a patient’s vital signs during clinical everyday life.

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

The authors declare that a positive ethics committee vote has been obtained.