ECG Signal Transmissions Performance over Wearable Wireless Sensor Networks

Sudden death is the most common disease of heart diseases and usually caused by cardiac arrest. The electrocardiograph (ECG) system is the most direct way to observe and monitor health status of the heart. In this kind of disease, the patient may need continuous monitoring, and sometimes is kept in Intensive Care Unit (ICU), which needs more utilities and manpower that will eventually leads to increase the cost and demands for qualified medical staff. In this paper we introduce a comprehensive real time monitoring ECG system for continuous monitoring patients inside/outside home. Wearable Wireless Sensor Network with a cluster head is connected to patient body for monitoring. Measured data by WWSS are transmitted via cluster head to an internet connection to the monitoring system located on the hospital. In case of emergency, the measured data is sent to the physician's cell phone for any necessary actions. We discuss the inside/outside system structure. Additionally, we analyze the proposed system in terms of power consumptions and optimum distance between WSN sensors.