Design and development of a wearable device for continuous monitoring of vital signs

Wearable devices are an emerging trend in different subject areas. In the market there is a wide range of wearable devices for fitness, but researches in healthcare areas are rapidly increasing. The spread of these devices introduces the possibility to have patient monitoring directly from home. Indeed, in some instances like Obstructive Sleeping Apnea (OSA), the patient is forced to stay in the hospital for a long period in order to monitor, for example, its heart rate. The scope of hospitalization is to collect data, while the analysis is performed when the patient is no more required to be in the hospital. This and the recent discovery of a new bio signal for OSA detection based on body temperature measurements, are the motivation and the guidelines of this work. To respond to the necessity of continue monitoring of temperature, this work aims to design and develop a possible wearable device able to accomplish different tasks related with OSA disorders. At first, an overview of wearable devices available in the market will be considered and then, the design and the applied methods will be discussed. Finally, a deep view of the firmware will be performed for the microcontroller and the Graphic User Interface (GUI). As a result, the device has been tested showing precise and accurate measurement of temperature but poor value of heart rate and blood oxygen levels. Furthermore, it has been tested for a 72 hours window showing the capability to acquire samples for the required amount of time and allowing the possibility to use these data for OSA detection algorithms.