The importance of posture and skin-site selection on remote measurements of neck pulsations: An ultrasonographic study

Laser Doppler vibrometry (LDV) and camerabased vibrocardiography imaging (cVCGI) systems can sense cardiac-related displacements of the skin. This allows that carotid artery (CA) or jugular vein (JV) wall movements are acquired, non-obtrusively, at the neck and used for assessing cardiovascular health. However, skin-neck measurements are invalid if the CA and JV pulsations overlap. The concern is plausible since these vessels are anatomically close to one another until the carotid sinus. In this paper, we build on ultrasonographic (US) insights to verify whether trunk posture and skin-site variability within the neck influence cVCGI outcomes. Using ultrasound (US), we recorded the wall movements of the CA and JV in 4 subjects (ages, 28-41 yrs) in the supine, recumbent and seated positions at sites in the vicinity of the common CA. Skin-displacement waveforms were subsequently recorded by cVCGI and compared with US recordings. Our results show that CA displacements are dominant at the upper neck in the seated-to-recumbent positions whereas JV pulsations are best probed in recumbent-to-supine positions at the lower neck. These insights help to recognize the possible value of cVCGI in early-stage diagnosis or ambulatory monitoring.