Author(s)

M. Huotari, K. Määttä & J. Kostamovaara

Abstract

Arterial pulse wave analysis in time and frequency domain was carried out to find out biophysical and functional properties of artery walls measured with a photoplethysmographic (PPG) device. Because peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is a fatal problem all over the world, an easy diagnosis method would be needed. It could probably be diagnosed by PPG which is a non-invasive optical technique for detecting the arterial pulse waves. We present a study to characterize and quantify the arterial pulse wave components based on the use of logarithmic normal function (LNF). The measurements were carried out parallel from the index finger and toe tip with healthy subjects. In addition, a second derivative of the PPG signal (SNPPG) was also analyzed. The tests were applied to arterial pulse waves from 11 subjects between 5 and 69 years. The results show good correlation of pulse wave changes as a function of age. Keywords: arterial stiffness, photoplethysmography, pulse wave analysis, percussion, tidal, dicrotic, pre-ejection wave component. 1 Introduction Arterial stiffness has been estimated with many different analysis and procedures. One of them is the contour analysis of pulse waves. It has been proposed as a non-invasive means in assessing arterial stiffness in atherosclerosis. Accurate determination of the conventional parameters is usually precluded by changed waveforms in the aged and atherosclerotic objects. In this paper we introduce a new photoplethysmographic (PPG) way to estimate arterial elasticity or stiffness value. It has good reproducibility and it can also correlate

Keywords

arterial stiffness, photoplethysmography, pulse wave analysis,percussion, tidal, dicrotic, pre-ejection wave component