Signal acquisition and display of pulse waveform from the radial artery using pressure sensor

A radial artery pulse wave is well known as a good means to diagnose human body condition. Information about constitution, as well as organs, can be obtained by detecting the artery pulse wave. Recently, the information about the human body constitution may be considerably utilized to accelerate the recovery process of the patient on the basis of comprehensive diagnosis. A radial artery pulse wave is considered as one of promising means to examine the human body constitution. However, since the examination has been conducted by the feeling of fingertips, the diagnosis may occasionally have uncertainty or fatal error. In this paper, a new non-invasive measuring system to examine the pattern of a pulse wave is suggested and developed. The system is composed of three components: pressure sensor (piezoelectric crystal and diaphragm), signal conditioning circuit, and display of data using an interface card and a personal computer.