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Prototype development for real-time epilepsy
seizures detector using three parameters
Joyce S. Y. Sia1, Lai Z. Huan1, Lam S. Kit1 and Liong C. Ling1, Ghazali N. Effiyana1,
*
1 Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Johor Bahru, Johor
Malaysia
2 Advanced Telecommunication Technology Research Group, Faculty of Electrical Engineering,
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Johor Bahru, Johor Malaysia
Abstract. This paper proposes a prototype for real-time epilepsy seizures
detection using skin conductance, temperature and sense movement. This
proposed work is expected to help epilepsy patients to receive immediate
help from the people around when seizures happen. This prototype is
wearable and developed using Arduino Nano, Galvanic Skin Response
(GSR) sensor, accelerometer, temperature sensor and pulse sensor.
Epilepsy patients can wear this prototype just like a watch. The prototype
is connected to the mobile application via Bluetooth and can alert the
people around by buzzing alarm as well as sending text message to the
doctor or family member. Details development and results are discussed in
this paper.
1 Introduction
The ubiquitous computing and mobile communications create a smart technology platform
for healthcare. This emerging trend provides advanced medicine and clinical care as well as
bring benefit to individual patients and society as whole. Epilepsy seizures as a challenge in
specialty care due to the problem of lack of neurologists and no accurate therapy for each
type of epilepsy [1].
Epilepsy is abnormal of central nervous system in which the brain’s electrical systems
that are characterized by a disorder tendency to cause recurrent seizures. The thought,
action and feeling of patients become confused and uncontrollable when the
communication between nerve cells of brain is disrupted [2]. The patient temporary lapses
of consciousness and loss their body controls suddenly may cause severe or subtle injuries.
The frequency of seizures happen is unpredictable [3]. Therefore, seizures first aid plays a
critical role to reduce the danger toward the patients.
Most type of epilepsy seizures can be classified into two main categories which are
generalized seizures and focal seizures [4]. Focal seizures happen when certain part of the
brain in abnormal condition which means only part of the body controlled by that part of
brain will be affected. The severity of focal seizures depends on the area of seizures, the
part of brain where seizures happen and the particular function of that part of brain [1].
*
Corresponding author: nurzal@utm.my
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution License 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
MATEC Web of Conferences 250, 07002 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1051/matecconf/201825007002
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However, generalized seizures start deep of the brain involve the entire brain may cause
disoriented of whole body. The generalized seizures can be divided into motor or non-
motor seizures. The cause of generalized seizures is presumed to be genetic [2].
Particular symptoms can be the indicator and sign of epilepsy seizures happen.
Neurologists are able to provide more information to the patient about the reasons of
seizures happen when a person is diagnosed with a particular syndrome. Symptoms of
epilepsy seizures include staring and blinking, jerking movements, loss of muscle tone and
stiffening of limbs [4]. When both sides of brain are involved, symptoms include rhythmic
and full-body jerking. Delay detection cause premature death of epilepsy seizures’ patients.
Therefore, for this project, a device is proposed to detect the happens of epilepsy
seizures. Practical suggestions are provided where this epilepsy seizures detector is
developed to achieve timely detection to prevent premature death. This device will detect
the skin conductive, orientation and temperature of patients in the process to detect whether
the epilepsy seizures is happened or not.
2 Prototype Development
The basic requirement of this project is to produce a wearable device which is small in size
and portable so that user is easily to wear the epilepsy seizure detector to alert the
surrounding people when seizure is happened. The design of this hardware is almost same
to the wearable products that we can see in the market such as Apple watch and other type
of smart watches. After interviewing a medical doctor from Pusat Kesihatan UTM (PKU),
the conclusion that can be made is the obstacles facing by the patients of epilepsy seizure
nowadays is lack of suitable approaches which can give them first aids when seizures
happen. Most of the fatalities cause by seizures is because of the delay treatment. The pain
point that is solved is listed in Table 1.
Table 1. Pain points and needs
Pain Point
Needs
The seizure can happen regardless
time and places.
Alert the surrounding people and
provide some first aids knowledge about
seizures to public.
Severe symptoms may cause
fatal.
Monitor health progress to get the
condition of patient immediately.
Seizure may cause physical
injuries.
Alongside with the patient in order to
provide immediate assistance or help to
the patients.
The goal of this project is to provide instant help to the epilepsy seizures patients as
well as to reduce the cases of fatalities cause by prolonger treatment. However, the current
technology and lack of information from professional specialist in neurology become the
limitation for the perfection of this prototype.
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MATEC Web of Conferences 250, 07002 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1051/matecconf/201825007002
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Figure 1 illustrates the general architecture of this project.
Fig. 1. General architecture
Figure 1 shows the developed prototype is connected to the developed epilepsy seizure
detector apps via Bluetooth. The developed apps stores all the data from the sensors in
Firebase database. SOS message will be send to the doctor or family member in real-time
when seizure happens. At the same time, patient’s phone will turn on the buzzer to alert
people around the patient. The first aid instruction will be shown in the patient’s phone via
the developed apps.
The proposed epilepsy seizures detector will determine the happens of seizures by using
three references which are skin conductance, temperature and sense movement of the
patient. A Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) sensor is used to detect the skin conductance of the
patient because the muscle of the patient will cramp when seizures happen. The sense of
movement of the patient is determined by using accelerometer as a detection of falling of
patients. These are the two main sensors for the detection of epilepsy seizures and it is
supported by a temperature sensor. As the temperature of patient increase from normal
temperature, it has higher possibility happens of seizures. All of these sensors will be
connected to the Arduino Nano board for controlling. It is dangerous when the patient is not
accompanied by family member as seizures happens. Thus, a Bluetooth is implemented in
the system to trigger the developed epilepsy seizure detector apps to send the emergency
message to the preliminary setting emergency contact number. The contact number can be
doctor’s patient or family member. At this current time, only one number can be inserted to
set as the emergency number that can receive the emergency message. Figure 2 shows the
flow chart of the system.
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MATEC Web of Conferences 250, 07002 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1051/matecconf/201825007002
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Yes
Start
Sensor collect
data and sends to
the cloud
GSR detects
abnormality?
Read
accelerometer
sensor
Read temperature
sensor
Falling = TRUE Temperature >=
Temp + 2
RGB turns RED
Buzzer on
SMS activated
End
RGB turns GREEN
Buzzer off
SMS deactivated
No
No No
Yes
Yes
Fig. 2. Flowchart of the system’s operation
3 System Operation
The coding was reloaded to the Arduino Nano board to ensure all the readings taken were
newly generated. Two GSR sensor electrodes were wore on two fingers of patient for
detecting skin conductance purpose. First-time usage button was pressed until the initially
red in colour Red, Green, Blue (RGB) LED is turned to green as shown in Figure 3.
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MATEC Web of Conferences 250, 07002 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1051/matecconf/201825007002
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Fig. 3. Standby steps for detector function
The developed epilepsy seizure detector apps was launched and connected to the
Bluetooth in the device. The personal information of patient and emergency contact number
are required to fill in the developed epilepsy seizure detector apps at the first time as shown
in Figure 4.
Fig. 4. Personal information page
The emergency message is will be send to the phone of number saved as seizures
happen. As the two fingers equipped with electrodes were twitched, the skin conductance is
changed. The RGB led implemented on the epilepsy seizures detector is turned to red
colour and the alarm on the developed epilepsy seizure detector apps will be triggered at
once. The alarm is used to alert the surrounding people near to the patients to give them
helps promptly. The first aids knowledge to help seizures’ patient will be shown by the
apps through the patient’s phone as in Figure 5. The condition of the patient will be saved
in the Firebase database which can be observed by doctor.
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MATEC Web of Conferences 250, 07002 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1051/matecconf/201825007002
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Fig. 5. First aid instruction
4 Results & Discussion
As can be seen in Figure 6, before confirming the epilepsy seizure, the developed epilepsy
seizure detector apps recorded that the status of “Seizure Detection” is 0 and changes to 1
to ring the bell after the confirmation.
Fig. 6. Detection of epilepsy seizure
In Figure 7, RGB LED changes from green to red after seizure detected. Meanwhile, the
emergency message was sent to the doctor’s phone for the notification purposes, as shown
in Figure 8. On the other hand, Firebase database was set to collect the data from the
developed epilepsy seizure detector apps with interval of 2 seconds.
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MATEC Web of Conferences 250, 07002 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1051/matecconf/201825007002
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Fig. 7. RGB LED changes from green to red after detection
Fig. 8. The emergency message received on doctor’s phone
Figure 9 shows that the data which is collected at 12.01pm showed that the seizure
occurred while the other time showed the detection was false.
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MATEC Web of Conferences 250, 07002 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1051/matecconf/201825007002
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Fig. 9. Seizure detection on Firebase database
Stability test was conducted. The whole processes were conducted repeatedly for five
times. Results from Firebase database, changes of RGB LED, doctor’s phone and the
developed epilepsy seizure detector apps were observed. Data collected after testing the
device for 5 times is shown in Table 2.
Table 2. Data collected for four items to be checked for 5 repetitive test
Tries
Items
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
RGB LED
Developed epilepsy
seizure detector apps
Doctor’s phone
Firebase database
From Table 2, we can observe that the device passes 4 tests out of 5. In other words, the
device has 80% of accuracy and precision which also means that the system has 20% of
possibilities on facing detection failure. Besides, from the same table, when the seizure
occurred, RGB LED has 100% correct detection, meanwhile the developed epilepsy seizure
detector apps might fail and causes other items (dcotor’s phone and Firebase database) to
fail too.
The detector fails to detect the seizure sometimes due to the contradiction of serial
communication between Arduino Nano and the developed epilepsy seizure detector apps.
The same problem causes the accelerometer fail to detect a fall as the delay needed to
transmit the data was too long until the accelerometer fails to detect the fall on time.
Somehow, the device is not said to be bad but there are some improvements needed to
enhance the user experience. For instances, higher sensitivity sensors could be used to
replace the one used in this project to give better results. Besides, the Bluetooth serial
communication between the developed epilepsy seizure detector apps and Arduino Board
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MATEC Web of Conferences 250, 07002 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1051/matecconf/201825007002
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can be improved by replacing a better Bluetooth chip. As the detection of seizure
occurrence was critical in this project.
5 Conclusion
The epilepsy seizure detector was built with low cost materials which could meet the
demand of medium-income family which is the majority group of people in the world.
Moreover, the device comes along with an the developed epilepsy seizure detector apps
which is user friendly and easy to be used. It helps to collect data for further analysis by
doctors or health advisors, instead of sending emergency message to their family member.
In short, the device is good enough to detect the seizure but somehow the accuracy is low.
References
1. Epilepsy Society, (2017, November). Seizures. An Introduction to Epileptic Seizure.
Retrieved from: https://www.epilepsysociety.org.uk
2. Mayo Clinic, (2017). Epilepsy Symptoms and causes. Retrieved from
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/epilepsy/symptoms-causes/
3. Jon Glass, (2011, October 11). Epilepsy. Seizures disorder. Retreived from
https://www.medicinenet.com/seizure/article.htm
4. WebMD Medical Reference, (2017, July 12). Types of Seizures and their Symptoms.
Retrieved from https://www.webmd.com/epilepsy/
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