Hunger and stress monitoring system using galvanic skin response

Abstract

In the world, roughly more than 3 million people are affected by muscle power loss diseases which cause lack of communication. Further, this lack of communication is a severe problem with hunger and stress, which sometimes proves to be fatal. It is essential to monitor physical parameters such as hunger and mental stress of the patient. To observe hunger and stress, galvanic skin response (GSR) sensor is a most preferred method because it measures the conductance of skin due to sweating. We have designed new hunger and stress monitoring system (HS-MS) that helps patients and their caretakers to monitor stress and hunger level. HS-MS is two electrodes system that attaches to two fingers (index and middle) of the patient and monitors starvation and tension. According to the response of the sensor, caretakers can identify hunger and even the mental stress conditions of the patient. In all, 35 patients were examined using HS-MS system and 20 of them were used as a control. Overall system accuracy was found out to be 86.6% and response time of HS-MS 5 seconds. Sensitivity with respect to hunger and stress was about 99.9% and 73.3% respectively. Thus HS-MS can be identified as a helpful tool to provide comfort to the patient easily and can be used in hospitals or homes with lonely elderly people.