ELECTRICAL IMPEDANCE SPECTROSCOPY AS A FRIENDLY AND NON-INVASIVE METHOD TO REMOTELY CONTROL BODY MASS IN HOME CARE PATIENTS WITH OBESITY

According to the World Health Organization, obesity disease currently represents one of the main public health problems since it can influence the duration and quality of life with a high social cost, and the body mass index, as the ratio of body mass and the height squared, is considered as the measure to define obesity. However, in patients with severe obesity even moving from bed towards a weight scale could represent a very tiring and often risky action due to possible falls. Moving from previous evidences, in this study the electrical impedance spectroscopy method was applied to the dominant upper arm of 18 patients with obesity, with a a sweep of frequency configured from 10 to 300 kHz with a step of 1 kHz. The applied potential difference was 1 Vpp, with the current limited to 0.24 mA. Resulting values of the real part of the arms electrical impedance linearly and significantly correlates with patients’ body mass (P=0.0034) and body mass index (P=0.0427). These results consent of evaluate body mass changes in patients with severe obesity patients, from a simple application to an arm of an electrical current with very low intensity and relatively high frequency.