Key result
Heart rate variability parameters recorded from a steering wheel ECG significantly resembled those from a standard chest ECG during 90 minutes of driving, with mutual information values exceeding the 0.047 significance threshold.
Why the study?
Can heart rate variability be accurately measured from an automobile steering wheel compared to a standard chest ECG?
Observational (n=10)
Can heart rate variability be accurately measured from an automobile steering wheel compared to a standard chest ECG?
ECG recordings from a steering wheel can reliably measure heart rate variability compared to chest ECGs, offering a potential strategy for monitoring driver autonomic stress and safety.
Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
Steering-wheel ECG may enable nonintrusive driver HRV monitoring; leaves open prospective validation for safety applications.
BACKGROUND: Approximately 5% of motor vehicle deaths are assumed to be occur because of a cardiac event thought to be triggered by multiple factors. One important factor is an imbalance of sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous activities, which can be measured by analyzing heart rate variability (HRV). Therefore, a system has been developed to make electrocardiographic (ECG) recordings outside the driver's awareness from the steering wheel (steering-ECG) with an algorithm to remove noise. METHODS AND RESULTS: Steering-ECG and ECG from a chest lead (chest-ECG) were recorded simultaneously in 10 normal subjects while they were driving for 90 min. For each of 4 parameters (instantaneous heart rate, low- and high-frequency components of HRV, and the ratio of these components in all subjects), mutual information was used to examine whether the fluctuation from the steering-ECG resembled that from the chest-ECG. The mutual information of each parameter was larger than 0.047 with 95% confidence interval (mutual information values vary from 0 to 1; threshold of significance: 0.047). Hence, the fluctuation of each steering-ECG parameter resembled its chest-ECG counterpart. CONCLUSIONS: This system heralds a new driver-safety strategy by reporting alteration of autonomic nervous activity during driving.
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Osaka et al. (2008) conducted an observational in Healthy subjects (n=10). Steering wheel electrocardiogram (steering-ECG) vs. Chest lead electrocardiogram (chest-ECG) was evaluated on Mutual information between steering-ECG and chest-ECG for heart rate variability parameters (>0.047). Heart rate variability parameters recorded from a steering wheel ECG significantly resembled those from a standard chest ECG during 90 minutes of driving, with mutual information values exceeding the 0.047 significance threshold.
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