MU scientists advance a way to track changes in a person’s cardiovascular system
Scientists have discovered a way to provide early detection of various cardiovascular diseases — a mathematical model of the ballistocardiogram. While an electrocardiogram uses a contact approach to measure the electrical activity of the heart, a ballistocardiogram is a non-contact way of measuring the mechanical effect of the blood flow through the cardiovascular system.
“Even when we stand or lie still, our mass redistributes inside our body and generates a bodily motion that can be captured with a ballistocardiogram,” said Giovanna Guidoboni, the lead researcher on the study at the University of Missouri. “By applying our mathematical model, we can see information that we haven’t previously known about an individual’s cardiovascular system, such as the elasticity of the arteries, the contractility of the ventricles in the heart, or the viscoelasticity of the blood vessels. We built a virtual cardiovascular system by mathematically modeling the blood flow in our bodies.”
For more on the study published in IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, please click here.
