Programa del congreso

Measuring respiratory muscle activity is essential for assessing chronic respiratory diseases and neuromuscular disorders, and can be performed by means of surface electromyography (sEMG) over lower intercostal spaces, in an easy and noninvasive manner. While sEMG signals are usually recorded using commercial wired Ag/AgCl electrodes and complex acquisition setups, tattoo skin electrodes are currently emerging as a new wearable technology to measure electrophysiological signals. This study aims to evaluate the performance of tattoo skin electrodes for sEMG recording over lower intercostal spaces to measure respiratory muscle activity. In-lab tests were performed in 6 healthy participants, using two different tattoo sensors for recording four lower right intercostal space sEMG signals, corresponding to inter-electrode distances of 1.35, 2, 2.7, and 4.05 cm, during various respiratory maneuvers. Tattoo measurements of respiratory muscle activity were compared with reference measurements obtained with commercial Ag/AgCl electrodes and a respiratory band signal. Tattoo measurements showed very strong correlations (r from 0.858 to 0.931) and good-to-excellent agreement (ICC2,1 from 0.759 to 0.919) with reference measurements, regardless of the inter-electrode distance. These results demonstrate that tattoo sensors are a promising alternative to commercial Ag/AgCl electrodes for measuring respiratory muscle activity, being more comfortable for patients, and allowing easy design of electrode arrays for multichannel recordings in real-world settings.