Cuffless models to infer blood pressure from bioimpedance

测量血压(BP)对于高血压的早期诊断和治疗至关重要，高血压是45%的美国成年人患有的一种疾病，也是心力衰竭的风险因素，心力衰竭是美国的主要死亡原因。在世界范围内，高血压是最大的公共卫生流行病之一。与动态血压测量相比，频繁的门诊血压测量是更好的心血管事件预测指标，但今天，现有的临床准确测量血压的技术需要昂贵、不舒服和笨重的设备，使其无法在临床外推广使用。鉴于心力衰竭造成的巨大医疗和死亡负担、不断上升的医疗成本和老龄化的人口，持续的技术改进对心力衰竭的预防、管理和监测至关重要。该项目的目标是通过开发一种为此目的而制造的新型可穿戴手表来满足对准确、廉价、易于使用的持续监测BP的设备的需求。这项新技术将改变游戏规则，保护高危人群，在整个护理过程中积极有效地管理高血压患者，并减少与高血压相关的住院人数。这项研究还将作为肥沃的土壤，支持学生在STEM和以人为本的研究的交叉点继续他们的职业生涯。生物阻抗(BioZ)是一种非常适合非显着性血压监测的工具。在BioZ中，一股无形的电流流经身体，以了解血液如何通过动脉和静脉流动。在这里，研究人员建议开发以流体和电力原理为基础的新测量方法，以创造一种新的BioZ传感技术，能够实现连续、无袖带和方便的血压监测。为此，所采取的方法的一个新方面将是将BioZ与生理、计算和机器学习模型相结合，以在细胞水平上建立与这两种信号相关的潜在生物源。一旦建立并优化了将BP与BioZ联系起来的模型，将在代表各种身体指数和年龄组的一组个人中评估预测准确性。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Measurement of blood pressure (BP) is essential for early diagnosis and management of hypertension, a condition that 45% of US adults have and a risk factor for development of heart failure, the leading cause of death in the US. Worldwide, hypertension is one of the largest public health epidemics. Compared to ambulatory BP measurements, frequent out-of-clinic BP measurements are better predictors of cardiovascular events but, today, existing clinically-accurate technologies to measure BP require costly, uncomfortable, and cumbersome devices that prevent their extended use outside of the clinic. Given substantial healthcare and mortality burden of heart failure, rising healthcare costs, and the aging population, continued technological improvements to aid heart failure prevention, management, and surveillance are extremely important. The goal of this project is to address this need for an accurate, inexpensive, easy-to use device for continuously monitoring BP through the development of a novel wearable watch built for this purpose. This new technology will be a game-changer to protect at-risk individuals and effectively manage patients with hypertension proactively across the care continuum and reduce hospitalizations associated with hypertension. This study will also serve as fertile ground to support students in continuing their careers at the intersection of STEM and human oriented research.One tool that is well-suited for unobtrusive BP monitoring is bioimpedance (BioZ). In BioZ, an imperceptible electrical current is passed through the body to obtain insights into how blood flows through arteries and veins. Here, the Investigators propose to develop new measurement methods rooted with fluid and electricity principles to create a new BioZ sensing technology capable of enabling continuous, cuffless, and convenient BP monitoring. For this, a novel aspect of the approach taken will be the application of BioZ in conjunction with physiological, computational, and machine learning models to establish the underlying biological sources at the cellular level relating both signals. Once the models have been established and optimized to link BP to BioZ, the prediction accuracy will be evaluated in a cohort of individuals representative of a wide range of body indices and age groups.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.