Why the study?
Smart garments with embedded electrodes may offer novel physiological monitoring, but the concurrent validity of collecting heart rate data during exercise compared to standard monitors required evaluation.
Does a smart garment prototype accurately measure heart rate compared to an industry standard heart rate monitor during rest, exercise, and recovery in healthy males?
Does a smart garment prototype accurately measure heart rate compared to an industry standard heart rate monitor during rest, exercise, and recovery in healthy males?
The smart garment prototype demonstrated adequate concurrent validity for heart rate monitoring during rest and recovery, but its reliability during vigorous exercise remains unclear due to significant data loss.
Caution advised before clinical use of smart garment HR monitoring during exercise; leaves open need for larger validation studies.
A smart garment prototype embedded with laminate conductive electrocardiography electrodes may offer a novel method of physiological monitoring for longer periods of use and in a variety of environments. PURPOSE: To determine the concurrent validity of a smart garment when collecting heart rate (HR) data during exercise compared to an industry standard heart rate monitor (HRM). METHODS: 5 minutes of R-R interval data were simultaneously collected from 16 male participants (age: 24.6 ± 4.3 yrs; height: 180.7 ± 6.7 cm; body mass: 88.0 ± 10.0 kg) using HRM and smart garment devices during treadmill exercise (Walking – 3.0 mph, Jogging – 5.0 mph, Running – 6.5 mph), as well during pre-exercise (Rest) and post-exercise (Recovery) conditions. R-R interval data from both devices were then processed using third-party software to derive HR measures. RESULTS:Trivial to small, and non-significant (P > 0.05), absolute differences in HR measures were observed between the smart garment and the HRM during the Resting – Seated, Walking – 3.0 mph, Jogging – 5.0 mph, and Running – 6.5 mph, and Recovery – Supine conditions (Table). In addition, very strong to nearly-perfect Pearson correlations in HR data were identified between devices during all conditions (r = 0.726 – 0.977), with the smart garment accounting for 72.6% to 97.7% of the variance in HR data collected by the HRM (R2 = 0.527 – 0.955). However, significant (P < 0.05), but small, absolute differences in HR measures were observed between HR collected by the smart garment and the HRM during the Resting – Supine and Recovery – Seated conditions (Table). Further, although a very strong correlation was observed during the Running – 6.5 mph condition (r = 0.802, R2 = 0.643), this correlation was not statistically significant (P = 0.103), likely due to large data loss (68.75%). CONCLUSIONS: Adequate concurrent validity of the smart garment appears to be generally observed during rest and post-exercise recovery, it remains unclear during exercise .
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Cornell et al. (2023) studied this question.
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