A Review of Methods for Non-Invasive Heart Rate Measurement on Wrist

When evaluating general health condition on a patient, heart rate is an essential indicator as it is directly representative of the cardiac system state. Continuous measurement methods of heart rate are required for ambulatory monitoring involved in preliminary diagnostic indicators of cardiac diseases or stroke. The growing number of recent developments in wearable devices is reflective of the increasing demand in wrist-worn activity trackers for fitness and health applications. Indeed, the wrist represents a convenient location in terms of form factor and acceptability for patients. While most commercially-available devices are based on optical methods for heart rate measurement, others methods were also developed, based on various physiological phenomena. This review is focused on heart rate measurement methods located on forearm and more specifically on the wrist. For each method, the physiological mechanism involved is described, and the associated transducers for bio-signal acquisition as well as practical developments and prototypes are presented. Methods are discussed on their advantages, limitations and their suitability for an ambulatory use. More specifically, the superposition of motion artefacts over the signal of interest is one of the largest drawbacks for these methods, when used out of laboratory conditions. As such, artefact reduction techniques proposed in the literature are also presented and discussed.