Authors:
M. Oliveira
1
;
C. Quintão
2
;
1
;
R. Vigário
2
;
1
;
B. Mendes
3
;
C. Caldeira
3
;
F. Rodrigues
3
and
C. Quaresma
2
;
1
Affiliations:
1
Departamento de Física, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologias, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2829-516 Monte da Caparica, Portugal
;
2
Laboratório de Instrumentação, Engenharia Biomédica e Física da Radiação (LIBPhys-UNL), Departamento de Física, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Monte da Caparica, 2892-516, Caparica, Portugal
;
3
Área de Medicina Física e Reabilitação, Hospital Curry Cabral, Centro Hospitalar Lisboa Central, Portugal
Keyword(s):
Electrodermic Signal, Heart Rate, Pain, Shoulder, Signal Processing.
Abstract:
Currently, pain analysis in a clinical environment is not common and is at fault for being subjective and always dependent on a personal response. Therefore, it is imperative to use physiological signals to quantify pain and make diagnosis more objective. This article aims to study the relationship between pain, through its analog scale, with the electrodermal and cardiac signals of individuals characterized by having a shoulder pathology that gives rise to recurrent pain. This study was carried out on 21 patients from Hospital Curry Cabral, who were part of the Occupational Therapy department’s care in the area of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, and 18 individuals without any pathology, thus serving as a control group. All participants followed an experimental protocol consisting in the measurement of electrodermal and cardiac signals and pain level when performing two different movements. The results suggest that there is indeed a relationship between the two measured signals
and pain. The greater the pain experienced by the individual, the greater the amplitude of the electrodermic signal and heart rate appears to be.
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