Wearable monitor for the assessment of tissue water fraction as a marker of edema development (Conference Presentation)

Peripheral edema occurs due to various causes including inflammation, injury or cardiovascular diseases. Importantly, it is a marker of decompensation in patients with heart failure. Timely detection of edema development prior to overt symptom development requires continuous monitoring. We are developing a multi-wavelength wearable derived from the previously demonstrated FlexNIRS platform to assess the tissue water fraction. We show validation measurements of discrete wavelength, multi-distance CW-NIRS measurements against frequency-domain NIRS and broadband spectroscopy using both a subset of the spectrometer measurements and a custom multi-wavelength LED module based wearable prototype. Results are reported from both phantoms and in vivo measurements.