Method and equipment for polysegmental body composition estimation

Objectives: The ain of this work is to allow the possibility of polysegmental body composition by bioimpedance measurements for all body regions simultancously in the monitoring mode with minimization og applied elektrodes number.

Methods: Tetrapolar method of bioimpedance measurements was modified for analyze of polysegmental objects having star-type structure. Body regions bioimpedance parameters are measured with employmeht of automatical separate communitation of injecting and potential electrodes, which are positioned at the distant ends of the limbs. In addition to segmental bioimpedances the dimensiones of body regions are mesured and taken into account for calculation tissue parameters. The resalts make possible to determine the parameters of two-, three- and four- component models of body composition.Cross correction of integral and segmental parameters is carried out for the results error reduction. The method comprises estimations of indices of interregional relations of body composition parameters and alterationa of these indices in time.

Results: In experemental investigations parameters of about 80 volunteers with normal and high body mass index were measured. Also method and equipment were applied for the monitoring of patients during therapeutic threatments causing interregional liquids redistribution. These experiments showed the sensibility of method to variations of regional tissue composition and the stability of results.

Conclusions: Automatic communitation and adequate mathematic data processing make this method applicable for medicine, physiology, fitness etc.