Abstracts Category : Other

Electrical Heating Vest for Heart Failure and/or Hypertension Therapy

by Fanqin Meng

Purpose:To develop a lightweight, safe, and controllable electrical heating vest for heart failure and/or hypertension patients.Methods:a. A literature review related to the topic was conducted.b. A model of a simplified human body thermoregulation system was developed and simulated. It was used to predict the power requirement of the battery to increase core body temperature up to 1 Celsius degree (C).c. A prototype with a smart controller was developedd. In-vitro tests of the prototype were conducted to assess performance and safety.e. The prototype was tested on 10 healthy human volunteers and the results were analyzed.Results:a. An average core body temperature increase of 0.3 C (P<0.05) was observed in healthy human volunteer tests within 30 minutes.b. The vest induced decreases in systolic blood pressure of 5.5 mmHg and diastolic blood pressure of 4.8 mmHg on average.Conclusions:A carbon-fiber vest can increase body core temperature by 0.3C lowering systolic and diastolic blood pressure, which can be potentially used for helping heart failure and/or hypertension patients.