Textile electrodes in electrical bioimpedance measurements – a comparison with conventional Ag/AgCl electrodes

Work has been intensified around the integration of textile and measurement technology for physiological measurements in the last years. As a result nowadays it is possible to find available commercial products for cardiovascular personal healthcare monitoring. Most of the efforts have been focused in the acquisition of EKG for cardiovascular monitoring where textile electrodes have shown satisfactory performance. Electrical Bioimpedance is another type of physiological measurement that can be used for personal healthcare monitoring where the integration and the performance of the textile electrodes has not been investigated that thoroughly. In this work, the influence of the textile electrodes on the measurements and on the estimation of the Cole (R₀, R_infin, f_C and alpha) and body composition (TBW, ICW, ECW and FFM) parameters has been especially addressed. Complex Spectroscopy 4-electrode wrist-to-ankle electrical bioimpedance measurements taken with conventional Ag/AgCl and textile-electrodes on customized bracelets have been compared and analyzed in the frequency range 3 to 500 kHz. The obtained results suggest that the use of textile electrodes do not influence remarkably on the complex spectral measurements neither in the estimation of Cole nor body composition parameter. In any case any possible effect introduced by the use of textile is smaller than the effect of preparing the skin by the using abrasive conductive paste.