Project Abstract

This project
research was done to build a device that is capable of recording the heart rate
of an individual and sending that heart rate to the doctor. This research is
aimed on making the process of recording heart rate less complicated and the
device that will be developed during this research will try to meet the
standards of a good heart rate monitor. It will be easy to use, sizable and
light so it can be carried around during emergencies. The device is going to be
very user friendly in the sense that there are no complicated buttons the
individual just checks their heart rate and the system does the rest. This
project will be used in the medical and health care department mostly, it will
also be used in schools and homes. This project will help in the prevention of
heart rate diseases in the sense that if an individual keeps tabs on his heart
rate and is always in sync with is medical doctor, when an alteration in the
heart rate is noticed or observed it is quickly dealt with before the issue
becomes aggravated.

Project Overview

In this chapter
discussion of how the heart works will be treated and some important terms will
be defined to help our description of the heart rate scanner device. Some
important terms that will be defined are: Microcontroller, Heart rate and
Fingertip reader or scanner.

The
heart is a vital part of the human body because it is from the heart acts as a
mechanism that pumps blood to reach every nook and cranny of the human body the
heart beats up to 100,000 times in a day.

The
heart is divided into two sides and the dividing line is called the septum the
right side of the heart pumps blood to the lungs to pick up oxygen, the left
side then receives the oxygen rich blood gotten from the lungs and then pumps
it to the rest of the body. The heart has four sides or chambers and also four
valves these valves are connected to the different blood vessels. The blood
vessels and veins carry blood from the body back to the heart while arteries
help in the transportation of blood to the rest of the body. (Gary H.
Gibbons, 2013).
The heart is like a microprocessor in a computer it different blood platelets
which are micro mini organisms which are created and destroyed every minute in
the body are circulated round the body by the arteries and the veins within a
particular time.

It
is important to see how the heart beats, the atria and the ventricles work side
by side, alternately contracting and relaxing pump blood. The part of the heart
that makes this possible is the electrical system of the heart. The heartbeat
is triggered by electrical impulses which travel down a special pathway through
the heart. These electrical impulses starts in the small specialized cells
which are called the sinoatrial node, it is located at the right atrium. The
sinoatrial node is known as the hearts natural pacemaker. Electrical activity
spreads through the walls of the atria and cause them to contract. A cluster of
cells in the middle of the heart between the atria and ventricles the
atrioventricular node acts like a gate that makes the electrical signal slow
before it enters the ventricles. This delay allows the atria to have ample to
contract before the ventricles contract. A pathway called the His-Purkinje
network is a pathway of fibers that sends the impulse to the muscular walls of
the ventricles, causing them to contract.

With
the knowledge of how the heart beats it has been noted that when the body is at
rest, a normal heart beats up to 50 – 99 times a minute. When partaking in
exercise, having emotions, down with a fever and on medications the heart beats
higher than normal that is over 100 beats per minute. (James Beckerman, 2016)

The
heartbeat or pulse rate is one of the important vitals being checked in any
health organization. Taking a pulse does not only measure the heart rate, but
it also indicates the heart rhythm and the strength of the pulse with these
measurements the doctors will be able to detect whether there is or is not an
issue. The normal pulse of a healthy adult is ranges from 60 to 100 bpm. The
pulse rate fluctuates, that is increases and increases depending on the
activity being carried out or the body is at rest. It has been observed that
females over the ages of 12 and above tend to have faster heart beats than
males.

There
are different ways of checking your pulse, one of the oldest and most
conventional way of checking your pulse is to feel the beats by firmly pressing
the arteries since blood is pumped out of the body through the arteries. Where
the arteries can be felt or the pulse are at the side of the neck, the easiest
is found at the wrist, inside your elbow.

Another
way that was used for monitoring the heart rate was the electrocardiograph,
this device was a galvanometric device that detects and records the minute
differences in electric potential caused by heart action and occurring between
different parts of the body. The electrocardiograph was used to detect heart
diseases.

The
new modern age monitors come in different types, for example the chest and
wrist or even mobile phones like the SAMSUNG S6. From the first edition of
plastic straps, water or liquid was required for the device to perform at an
optimum level. Later on the units used have conductive smart fabric with
microprocessors built into them these microprocessors analyze the
electrocardiograph signal to determine the heart rate. Most recent devices use
optics to measure the heartrate using infrared light. It works by an infrared
light by an internal bulb, as the infrared light is absorbed by the blood, a
sensor then measures how dark the infrared light is, if it is extremely dark
due to the pulse causing a temporal increase in the amount of blood that is
being carried through the measured area and that is counted as heart pulse.

Most
of these products that read the important vitals of heart rate which can be
called heart monitors are in the hospital or health facility. So any individual
that wants to use the service has to go to the hospital or health facility and
the other devices check vitals but do not give so much of a detailed review of
your heart performance.

This
project creates a bridge from client to doctor so clients can easily get
detailed review from a professional on that individual’s heart performance

1.1.2   Microcontroller

A
microcontroller which is also known as MCU, which stands for microcontroller
unit is a computer system on a chip that is used to carry out executable task
on mini systems and other mini devices.

The
Microcontroller unit contains an integrated processor, memory and programmable
input or output peripherals, which are used to interact with elements in the
chip.

The
microcontroller unit is very different from a microprocessor which only
contains a Central Processing Unit (CPU). (Ganssle & Mike, 2012)

1.1.3   Heart
rate measurement

Let
us first define heart rate before discussing how it is measured. Heart rate is
the speed of the heartbeat measured by the number of contractions of the heart
per minute (bmp)

Heart
rate varies according to different activities of the body. These activities
include physical exercise, sleep, anxiety, stress, illness, and ingestion of
drugs. These activities also influence the rate of absorption of oxygen and
excretion of carbon dioxide which also influences the heart rate. (Amer, et al.,
2014).

1.1.4   Fingertip
reader or scanner

A
fingerprint scanner is a technology that identifies and authenticates the
fingerprints of an individual in order to grant or deny access to a computer
system or a physical facility.

When
the heart is beating, it pumps blood all through the body, this also changes
the blood volume inside the finger artery. This fluctuation of blood can be
detected through an optical sensing mechanism placed around the fingertip. The
signal can be amplified further for the microcontroller to count the rate of
fluctuation, which is actually the heart rate. The sensor unit consists of an
infrared light-emitting-diode (IR LED) and a photo diode, placed side by side, and
the fingertip is placed over the sensor assembly. The IR LED transmits an
infrared light into the fingertip, a part of which is reflected back from the
blood inside the finger arteries. The photo diode senses the portion of the
light that is reflected back. The intensity of reflected light depends upon the
blood volume inside the fingertip. So, every time the heart beats the amount of
reflected infrared light changes, which can be detected by the photo diode.
With a high gain amplifier, this little alteration in the amplitude of the
reflected light can be converted into a pulse. (Rajbex, 2013)

This
device is simply a device that supports communication between CPU board and
external devices. This board can be used to send or receive messages which will
be a big contribution to our project requirement for a client to be able to
communicate the readings to a professional (Doctor), the GSM module will be
very needed so this board is very important for the optimization of the project
and overall performance.

From
the Electrocardiograph it shows the elaborate process it takes to get a heart
rate reading the whole process of putting electrodes on different parts of the
skin so it will be easy to detect the pulse from the various muscles the
electrodes had been placed on, this process will take a long time. Though the
electrocardiograph was created a long time ago but the idea is still welcomed.
But all the new heart rate monitors being created which are generally merged to
a microcontroller board, are still complex for some individuals to handle. (Laukkanen
RMT, 1998)
Looking at some of the reviews and research carried out based on the succession
of this projects shows that most of the heart measuring devices have common
issue which is the usability level of these devices, they are not user
friendly. These devices have too many buttons on them without propel
description of what each of them mean, which is technical giving the severity
of information level and education level individuals have.

Individual
get to visit the hospitals because they can’t afford to go through the stress
of using a complicated heart rate measurement device they bought already and
getting to the hospital the procedures for registering at a health facility and
seeing a medical officer are also time demanding which will force individuals
that are really time conscious or impatient to tend to keep postponing their
medical check-up because they will have to spend inconsiderable amount of time
at the hospital.

Some
other microcontroller heart rate monitoring devices are more technical or
complicated to use considering the level of Knowledge of uneducated
individuals.

Based
on research on other projects the heart rate monitoring device has to use
exactly one minute to get an accurate heart rate measurement which can be done
at a faster rate considering time as a factor.

In
others, projects the monitors made where made to just measure our heart beat,
but individuals that are not medical practitioners or have no clue on how to
read heart rate measurements will not be able to operate the device properly.  

As
seen therefore there is a great need to simplify heartrate monitoring devices
so everyone would be able to use it so the rate of cardiovascular diseases
drastically reduced.

This
project, aim is to build a system that can monitor the heart rate of
individuals and make usability of this heart rate measuring device simpler for
uneducated individuals who seem to have issues measuring and reading their
heart rate by themselves by providing a helper (the doctor) who will decipher
the reading that was taken by the device and sent to the doctor for proper
analysis and produce a more reader friendly report for the users.

The
objectives of this project are:

1.     To
design an algorithm that monitors the heartrate of an individual in thirty
seconds.

2.     To
review other works that are closely related to this project.

There
will be a fingertip sensor that will read the heart beat from the fingertip
using an Infrared Light Emitting Diode (IR LED) for thirty seconds from an LED
sensor which sends the data to the microcontroller that will now convert the
readings from thirty seconds to one minute so the result given will be beat per
minute(bpm). The result is then sent to the screen and when the send button is
pressed a message will be sent to the medical professional whose details will
be programmed inside the device.

The
project provides a user friendly method of measuring the heart beat even if the
user is uneducated or educated he still gains help from a professional (doctor)
who analysis the reading and provides a more understandable result.

The
device produces result faster for further analysis.

This
device captures and saves the reading at the particular time and sends it to a
professional for proper analysis. It also provides three phases and a button:

Phase
1(up)- automatic send ON

Phase
2(middle)- OFF

Phase
3(down)- manual send ON.

It
has one button on surface which is the send button.

This
device supports a sim card that enables it send information from the reading to
the professional analyst (the doctor).

The
device will be an indoor device that will be used in homes, schools, hospitals,
emergency health care, military facilities, charity health care tours.

The
rate at which people go to the hospital because of heart related illnesses and
diseases are due to the fact that they do not have constant checkups because
the closest center to get a checkup will take the individual out of his comfort
zone. But with the thirty seconds microcontroller finger print scanner
connecting user and doctor, individuals can prevent bad heart conditions by
regular checkups from the comfort of their homes, offices and institutions.

·        
The project will need good network
coverage or signal to connect to the doctor.

·        
Abstract

·        
Chapter one: Background study, problem
statement, aims and objectives, research methodology, scope of study, and
project organization.

·        
Chapter two: Introduction, review of
closely related topics conclusion on reviews

·        
Chapter three: System Analysis and Design
Methodology, Instruction, Block Diagram, Explanation of different components,
how they will be used and what they will be used for.

·        
Chapter four: System Implementation and
Testing, explaining how the system works diagrammatically, limitations, outline
of the different stages and challenges faced, manual.

·        
Chapter five: Future Enhancement,
Recommendation and conclusion.

·        
References.