COMPARISON OF OXYGEN SATURATION AND HEART RATE BY SENSE WEAR ARMBAND AND ELECTROCARDIOGRAPH MONITOR IN ELDERLY PATIENTS.

Background: Wearable devices that measure continuous arterial oxygen saturation by heart oximetry (SpO2) and heart rate (HR) are commonly used in many applications, such as in the military, homecare units, hospitals, sports training and emergency monitoring systems. Objective: The purpose of this study was to verify the accuracy between two types of monitor devices over an extended period of time and to compare the values of SpO2 indicated by a Sense Wear Armband (SWA produced by iCareTech Healthcare Co., Ltd., China) to those obtained using a table electrocardiogram monitoring device (IPM12 produced by Mindray Biological Medical Electronic Co., Ltd., China), which is a device widely used in hospitals. Materials and Methods: Thirty-three adults (22 male, 11 female; 80.8±10.3 years) wore a SWA on the medial side of their right wrist and an Electrocardiograph(ECG) monitoring system as reference measures for SpO2 and HR. The difference of the two devices for estimating SpO2 and HR was assessed using the paired Student\'s t test. To evaluate the extent of agreement between measures of SpO2 and HR, Pearson correlations, intra-class correlations (ICC) and Bland-Altman analysis were conducted. Results: The result of the Bland-Altman analysis demonstrated that the agreement was good when SpO2 was assessed by the two methods and was moderate when HR was assessed by similar devices. The correlation between the HR assessed by the two devices was statistically significant (ICC ranged from 0.95 to 0.99; p < 0.001). However, the correlation when SpO2 was assessed by similar devices was lower than HR and the difference was statistically significant (ICC ranged from 0.37 to 0.94; p<0.05). Conclusions: These findings suggest that the SWA provides valid measures of SpO2 and HR compared to the conventional hospital device. Well-designed studies are needed to explore the accuracy of wearable devices used in different people of different states(e.g. in motion or rest state) when SpO2 and HR are assessed.