Comparison of pulse wave velocity derived from accelerometer and reflective photo-plethysmography signals placed at the carotid and femoral artery.

Carotid - femoral pulse wave velocity is an established measure to assess cardiovascular risk and an interesting surrogate parameter towards non-invasive continuous blood pressure inference. Due to progress in sensing technologies for wearable wrist worn sensors, there are low cost sensor combinations of photo-plethysmography and high fidelity accelerometers available offering access to pulse information from larger arteries complemented by blood volume changes in the superficial tissue. In this work we compare pulse wave velocities derived from accelerometer and reflective photo-plethysmography signals placed at the carotid and femoral artery. We discuss the different underlying physiological processes for the two sensing principles and present experimental results obtained in a study with healthy subjects.