Stimulating the Comfort of Textile Electrodes in Wearable Neuromuscular Electrical Stimulation

Hui Zhou, Yi Lu, Wanzhen Chen, Zhen Wu, Haiqing Zou, Ludovic Krundel, Guanglin Li, Hui Zhou, Yi Lu, Wanzhen Chen, Zhen Wu, Haiqing Zou, Ludovic Krundel, Guanglin Li

Abstract

Textile electrodes are becoming an attractive means in the facilitation of surface electrical stimulation. However, the stimulation comfort of textile electrodes and the mechanism behind stimulation discomfort is still unknown. In this study, a textile stimulation electrode was developed using conductive fabrics and then its impedance spectroscopy, stimulation thresholds, and stimulation comfort were quantitatively assessed and compared with those of a wet textile electrode and a hydrogel electrode on healthy subjects. The equivalent circuit models and the finite element models of different types of electrode were built based on the measured impedance data of the electrodes to reveal the possible mechanism of electrical stimulation pain. Our results showed that the wet textile electrode could achieve similar stimulation performance as the hydrogel electrode in motor threshold and stimulation comfort. However, the dry textile electrode was found to have very low pain threshold and induced obvious cutaneous painful sensations during stimulation, in comparison to the wet and hydrogel electrodes. Indeed, the finite element modeling results showed that the activation function along the z direction at the depth of dermis epidermis junction of the dry textile electrode was significantly larger than that of the wet and hydrogel electrodes, thus resulting in stronger activation of pain sensing fibers. Future work will be done to make textile electrodes have similar stimulation performance and comfort as hydrogel electrodes.

Keywords: electrode-electrolyte interface; finite element modeling; neuromuscular electrical stimulation; stimulating comfort; textile electrode.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
(a) A schematic view illustrating the composition of the textile electrode for surface electrical stimulation; (b) a photograph of the self-developed textile electrode (left) and a commercial hydrogel electrode (right) used in the experiment; (c) a photograph of the placement of the developed textile electrode on a subject.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Placement of electrodes for impedance spectroscopy measurement.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Microscopic view of two textile electrodes: (a) the dry textile electrode; (b) the wet textile electrode.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Finite element model of dry textile electrode; three dimensional view of the model is shown in (a), side view is shown in (b), and the details of modeled dry textile electrode is shown in (c).
Figure 5
Figure 5
Impedance of the hydrogel electrode, textile electrode, and wet textile electrode (w-textile electrode) tested on TA muscle of human legs.
Figure 6
Figure 6
(a) Developed equivalent circuit model for the electrodes tested on leg muscle, with circuit elements including the electrode-skin impedance (Zelectrode-skin) and the body resistance (Rbody). The Zelectrode-skin is composed by electrode resistance (Relectode), and charge-transfer resistance (RT) and double-layer constant-phase element (ZCPE) at the electrode-skin interface; (b) A simplified equivalent circuit model for data fitting, with circuit elements including the total resistance (Rall) of body (Rbody) and electrode (Relectode), total charge-transfer resistance (RT-all) and total double-layer constant-phase element (ZCPE-all) at the electrode-skin interface.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Impedance of the hydrogel electrode, textile electrode, and wet textile electrode tested on large-area stainless steel plate.
Figure 8
Figure 8
The sums of TESCQ scores of cutaneous, deep and general categories with the three different electrode types from all the subjects.
Figure 8
Figure 8
The sums of TESCQ scores of cutaneous, deep and general categories with the three different electrode types from all the subjects.
Figure 9
Figure 9
The electric field gradient at the depth of epidermis-dermis junction for dry textile electrode (a), wet textile electrode (b), and hydrogel electrode (c). In the figure, the anode electrode is located on the left side while the cathode electrode is located on the right side.

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