Non-Contact Imaging of the Neck for Monitoring Cardiopulmonary Clinic Patients

In this paper, we address the problem of non-contact neck imaging using a standard smartphone camera and ambient lighting to accurately estimate the heart rate (HR) and respiratory rate (RR). While most existing techniques for non-contact imaging focus on detecting HR from facial regions, limited work has explored HR and RR detection from the neck. Additionally, prior studies typically involve healthy volunteers and rely on specialized cameras or controlled lighting conditions. In contrast, data for this study were collected in a cardiology clinic under regular fluorescent lighting, with a majority of participants being cardiac patients. The proposed approach uses 15 to 30-second videos to analyze the skin displacement motion of neck pixels. The results demonstrate superior performance with r-values of 0.98 and 0.85 for HR and RR respectively compared to existing imaging photoplethysmography (iPPG) algorithms, highlighting the robustness of this method. The outcomes of this work could facilitate the detection of carotid artery and jugular venous pulsation, providing a more comprehensive assessment of cardiovascular and respiratory health, particularly for patient monitoring.

Cite as: M.H. Davoodabadi Farahani, M. Bolic, T. Zhang, T. Zadorsky, R. Sabbagh, Non-Contact Imaging of the Neck for Monitoring Cardiopulmonary Clinic Patients, Biomedical Optics Express, 2024.